Ektar

The images coming from the f/3.5 Ektar on my Kodak Signet 35 seem very similar to me to those produced by the f/2.8 Tessar on the Zeiss Ikon Contessa.  There are several reasons to support that judgement.  The Ektar name did not refer to a specific lens design, but rather was used by Kodak to indicate that the lens was of the highest quality that the company produced.  The Signet 35 lens, in fact, is a four-element in three-group Tessar-type design and was contemporaneous with the Tessar on the Contessa 35.  The two cameras and their lenses were early to mid-'50s products which made use of significant advances in the post-war years in glass composition, lens component design and lens coatings.  I'm looking forward now to making some pictures with the Contessa 35 for the sake of comparison, but I'm pretty sure that there will be no apparent difference in the images from the two cameras used in similar conditions.

The warm spring days have put leaves on the trees in the Plaza Vieja and brought out the custom classics for the informal Friday morning car shows.  There were a couple parked at the curb that I had not seen before including a '37 Chevy 4-door and a '49  Fastback.