WWII era Berning Robot X-ray Camera with Carl Zeiss Jena Biotar 5cm f/1.4
WWII era Berning Robot X-ray Camera
With legendary Carl Zeiss Jena Biotar 5cm f/1.4, including modification set that adds aperture and focus control to Leica-M (no coupling)
Click on the images to make them bigger.
Asking price:
$8,000 (USD)
Shipping included, ships to most countries, I also accept Euro.
If you’re interested, want more information, or detailed images/videos, don’t hesitate to email me at espen.susort@gmail.com or message me at Instagram.
| Company | Berning Robot |
| Country | Germany |
| Decade | 1940s |
| Type | High speed X-ray camera |
| Motor | Hand crank spring motor |
| Film | 135 film (24x24mm image format) |
| Lenses | Carl Zeiss Jena Biotar 5cm f/1.4 |
I am selling a rare Berning Robot X-ray camera with a super rare Carl Zeiss Jena Biotar 5cm f/1.4 lens (100-300 was ever made). There is little documentation of this version of the camera, you can read what I found here in this article. It was found in Norway, and was most likely used to diagnose tuberculosis or other diseases, most likely brought to Norway in the early 1940s during the German occupation of Norway during World War 2. Note that this version of the Robot camera wasn’t build with a shutter, the shutter trigger on this camera only moves the film forwards.
This combo might be the last existing copy, as I haven’t been able to find any other documented online or other places.
The lens is also extremely rare, made in around 1930s, from the Zeiss archives it’s noted this version was made to better cover full frame (35mm). The back element is significantly larger than the first version of the Biotar 5cm f/1.4 from 1928, which was made specifically to cover the smaller cine format (around modern S35/APS-C).
The lens is in mint condition, very clear optics, not coated. Some dust particles here and there, but no scratches, no fungus, no haze.
I’m including a conversion project I started on for this lens, where I’ve added aperture control, these replacement parts are made of brass and are solid and professionally machined. You don’t need any tools to add this modification, it’s just two parts that need to be unscrewed from each other. I designed it to be modular, adding M39x1 threads, making it an easily adaptable lens head, meaning you can add your own focusing mechanism. The mount is M39 or Leica M-mount. The focusing mechanism isn’t custom, it’s a generic Chinese focusing helicoid.
This lens is not to be confused with the later 1950s Biotar 50mm f/1.4 that was made for the Pentacon Pentaflex 16mm film camera. Although they both are double gauss (6 elements in 4 groups), the dimensions is very different, the version I’m selling have the largest image circle of the 3 versions. It does not cover GFX unfortunately.