Difference between 150 Tessar and 150 Xenar?

[Michael Graves]

I went down an picked up the camera yesterday. The Tessar in a rim-set Compur. I does not look to be coated, but that could just be that I don't know what to look for. The Xenar is a pretty little thing, It is also in a compur. I'm going to mount it on a lens board and take it out with my Chamonix and shoot the same photo with both and see if I can tell any differences. I'll also see if there is any difference in image circle based on pure observation. Now that I have them both hand in hand, I can say that the Xenar is only slightly larger than the Tessar. Looking at it in a photo when mounted on the camera made it look bigger than it was. It is, however a little larger. It is definitely coated. I doubt if I'll be able to get out this weekend, but I'll try to do a serious comparison of the two and post what I find out here. It should be fun regardless of the results.

[jp]

I'd also consider the smoothness/roundness of the aperture blades when comparing the two lenses. It's sometimes not desirable to see iris shapes in the background of photos when you could be seeing a smooth round bokeh like the Tessar style is known for.

[Steve Hamley]

Schneider made Xenars from no later than 1931 until fairly recently.

And Carl Zeiss still does! Check out the lens on the soon-to-be-released Nokia Lumina 900 - a Carl Zeiss Tessar.

http://stuffmideast.com/2012/01/12/1...kia-lumia-900/

There are better images of the lens on the phone out there, but I couldn't find it easily. So the Tessar lives on.

Cheers, Steve

[Dan Fromm]

Interesting, Steve. I wondered whether Nokia's Tessars are the classic four elements in three groups design or just a trade name. It seems they're the classic type: http://lenses.zeiss.com/photo/en_DE/...ers/nokia.html

[IanG]

There's a Schneider 120mm f4.5 Xenar in a rimset Compur with a SN 307** that was made 1929/30, most likely 1929 and there was an early one in a Dial set cCompr for sale recently from MW Classic a online UK store. My own 150mm f5.6 Xenar has a very late SN 1478**** which is possible 2002, however it's thought the elemenst were made in the mid to late 90's and assembled years later and sold off cheaply through a very small no of dealers Robert White & MrCad in the UK I think Badger Graphics in the US.

Ian

[Emmanuel BIGLER]

I does not look to be coated,

Hello from France, congratulations for your Tessar.

A few things that we can add here is that you should not pay too much attention to the fact that the lens migh be coated, multi-coated, or not coated at all. In a (4/3) tessar design you have only 6 air-glass interfaces and the maximum field angle never exceds 60°. Both features tend to "naturally" reduce stray light whether the lens is coated or not, if compared to a 6/4 design covering over 70°.
If you have the serial number of this tessar lens, most probably the resources available on this group will help you to find the year of manufacture.
After the 2-nd World War, most, if not all German photographic lenses covering 60° were coated. Apo-repro lenses for studio work covering a narrower angle of view, were less in urgent need of beaing coated, though.
Nevertheless, roughly speaking for a tessar or a xenar, before WW-II = not coated; after = coated, and last generation, Schneider xenars = (probably ??) multi-coated.
An interesting evolution of the design in the last generations of tessar-xenar lenses is that "fast" 4.5 apertures were eventuallly abandoned by some manufacturers.
The last Schneider Xenars for view cameras in 150 and 210 mm had a max aperture of 5.6 and 6.1, respectively. I have the vague idea that this evolution was driven by trying to slighty increase the image circle and overall image sharpness, as far as a 4/3 formula (1-st patent = 1902 !!) can go. And also to reduce size & weight (xenar 5.6 / 150 = 170 grams including shutter !)

Nikon had on catalogue the Nikkor-M series, tessar designs with a purposedly limited max aperture to f/9 like an apo-repro lens; the Nikkor-M lens being intended to be a long focal length and not a general purpose lens covering 55-60°.

However I have an excellent 210 mm Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar of the sixties with the traditional f/4.5 max aperture.

Enjoy your tessars !