Schneider vs. Rodenstock

[Greg Liscio]

Opinions please on these two lens families. Plan to use them on a TK23. Thanks for the anticipated helpful information.

Greg

[naturephoto1]

Hi Greg,

I use lenses by both makers with my Linhof TK 45S. I have more Rodenstock than Schneider lenses, but both make outstanding lenses.

Rich

[steve simmons]

Ford vs chevy, mercedes vs bmw, ford vs dodge diesel, etc., etc.

If you will be shooting chromes to give to clients pick one brand and know that it will be as good as the other. If not, pick lenses based on focal length, weight, and max aperture and don't worry about brands.

steve simmons

[Eric Woodbury]

You need some of each and then a Nikkor or two, also.

[David Karp]

For color or black and white?

A modern lens from any of the four big players (3 now that Nikon is out) will do the job, and a nice one at that.

[John Berry]

Either lens would be wonderful. I do landscapes and find the rodenstock to be just perceptibly warmer. The schneider will be dead neutral, but has an impersonal feel to me.

[Capocheny]

You need some of each and then a Nikkor or two, also.

Eric,

Don't forget Fujinon lenses... :)

Greg,

All of these manufacturers produce great lenses and I'm sure you'll be happy with any of them.

I use lenses from all of them! :)

Cheers

[vijayn]

Rodenstooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooock

.....

Schneiderrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

(With apologies to Even Stevphen)

[Frank Petronio]

It is probably just obsessive compulsiveness in action but I like to buy all one brand or the other so the voices in my head are quiet.

[Jim Rhoades]

Frank, Those voices are the ghosts of the vast right wing, telling you to bait another lib.

[Dan Fromm]

Frank, if you soak your head long enough the voices will stop.

[paulr]

How about a quiet moment of thanks, to acknowledge our relative freedom here from the Leica vs. Everyone Else jihad.

[Colin Robertson]

Frank, don't soak your head. I lined my hat with aluminum foil, worked for me.

[Eric Woodbury]

Capocheny, you're right. I have the 450C. Great lens. Had a 250 for the 810, but sold it. Wish I had the 300C.

You all notice that if a question doesn't get answered on a forum such as this in the first couple of hits, that it degenerates or changes topics rapidly? What's the typical half-life of a question?

[erie patsellis]

Back to the subject at hand,

Way back when I shot lots of chromes for a living, I learned the hard way that either is good, just make sure every lens you use on that shoot, or for that customer's job is the same. (don't mix schneider/rodenstock/fuji/nikkor) as the (admittedly slight) difference in color reproduction will become huge by time the final product gets to print.

erie

[Ole Tjugen]

You all notice that if a question doesn't get answered on a forum such as this in the first couple of hits, that it degenerates or changes topics rapidly? What's the typical half-life of a question?

3.16 posts seem to be the average before a thread goes off topic the first time. If it carries on it will often come back on topic after an average of 16 posts, before vanishing ove the event horizon around the count of 42.

Slightly back on topic: Has anyone observed a significant tonality shift between single-coated and multicoated lenses from the same manufacturer? I'm thinking of recent high quality lenses like the Schneider 210mm f:6.1 Xenar, compared with a 210mm Apo-Symmar or similar?

[erie patsellis]

My only (not so recent experience) has been the S.A. (mc), Symmar-S MC line, but I'm willing to bet the increase in contrast will affect color balance, or more correctly eliminate the subtle shading that can happen in the darker areas of the frame.


erie

[Frank Petronio]

I bet age - "state of the art-ness" with design and coatings has more to do with it than the company. A 1949 Xenar isn't going to look like a 1996 APO Symmar.

[pixclixer]

Stick to Schneider or Rodenstock, new if you can [ethical proposal follows.]
I stick to companies [and they are struggling] that support LF photogs. by making and developing lenses today.
Nikon no longer makes, or develops new LF lenses. Fuji does not import or support their lenses in the US market and does not develop new LF lenses.
I try to help keep my tools available and hope they will continue to be so in the future.

Think first;
How do you work?
What lens lengths, apertures and how much coverage do you need?
I don't address the size/weight issue. I used monorails in the field, ARCA, and Sinar. I don't carry many or long lenses. Carrying monorail kit I could deal with the big version of a lens, in trade for more moves, more composing light, and/or a look I prefer.

I prefer Schneider lenses because their variety and look meet my needs.
I tend to work from wide angle to long standard, I use mono-rails in the field, and like lots of edge to edge sharp coverage for moves [Super Angulon XLs, Super Symmar XLs, now discontinued Super Symmar HMs.] My favorite lens is the Schneider Super Symmar 120 HM, it appears razor sharp, almost surreal in its' crispness and importantly provides the most coverage at my favorite length.

I have also owned a selection of the absolute sharpest LF film lenses Rodenstock makes [S, and W standard lenses in the guise of Sinaron SE and WS.] They were excellent, [but not amazing like the Schneider Super Symmars.] You may find lens lengths and speeds in Rodenstocks' lineup that you require. I had a 75mm f4.5 Sinaron-W/Grandagon-N that was brilliant, sparkling, with luminous highlights and sharp! The availability of f4.5 in wide angle is nice for interior available light work.

I am not associated with anybody in the business, just my preferences.

[Ole Tjugen]

I bet age - "state of the art-ness" with design and coatings has more to do with it than the company. A 1949 Xenar isn't going to look like a 1996 APO Symmar.

What I was asking about was a 2005 Xenar vs. a 2005 APO-Symmar-L; I already know the difference between a 1949 Xenar and a 2005 Xenar (aperture and weight, mostly. Colour rendition is very good with both, but the older one is slightly more prone to flare and "blue ghosting" in the shadows, possibly due to an extra 56 years of wear to the coating).

[Frank Petronio]

Sorry Ole, I didn't read close enough before posting. My bad.

I had modern 1980s-90s Rodenstock Geronar (Xenar) and a Sironar-N (Symmar) and the chromes were pretty similar, although at the time I used both at middle apertures only.

[Ole Tjugen]

No excuses necessary, Frank - it's easy to forget just how long the Xenar was in production, and that they were single coated right until the end!

[dslater]

Back to the subject at hand,

Way back when I shot lots of chromes for a living, I learned the hard way that either is good, just make sure every lens you use on that shoot, or for that customer's job is the same. (don't mix schneider/rodenstock/fuji/nikkor) as the (admittedly slight) difference in color reproduction will become huge by time the final product gets to print.

erie

Wow - that's really surprising. I would have thought that printing process would have compensated for any slight color differences between the lenses instead of accentuating it.

[erie patsellis]

perhaps, if you were having the printer's prepress people strip them in manually. At the time (mid 80's) there were a few of us in the pre press industry that shot, scanned, set the text and output seperations. There was enough of a difference that "I" could see it in the matchprint proofs, the customers probably never would.

I specialized in smaller (<128 page) catalog production, being a one stop shop, with the printing subcontracted. It was pretty nice, we could produce a catalog from start to finish in about 4 weeks, for a 64 page catatlog. At the time, it was about a 4-5 month process usign traditional methods. (the best part is that you could earn a decent living for that 4 weeks of work, nearly 4 months worth, in fact. it used to be that there was a value to the prepress work, these days everybody's brother/nephew/son is a graphic artist, all he needs is a computer and some free software, right? (realize that when I bought the adobe type library, it was more expensive than my house, probably still is pretty expensive)


erie

[Frank Petronio]

Back in the day like Erie describes, you couldn't be too consistent with your catalog photography. Not that the Color House couldn't adjust the colors, but the chrome served as a reference point for them to go by, and they would write contracts that they would "match the chrome". Changing color beyong what was on the chrome was an expensive $$$ author's alteration.

[Joe Forks]

My brother and I put a $50,000 Linotype on the curb for bulky items (trash) pick-up. It was nice not to have to dust off those font disks anymore.

We also ditched a $10k 20x24 agfa stat camera. I wish I had it back. I'd build a platform for it on top of the truck and point the truck at the subject. Maybe install some hydraulics to level. I don't even know what the lens was on the beast, but I know it was an excellent copy lens.



(realize that when I bought the adobe type library, it was more expensive than my house, probably still is pretty expensive)


erie

[dslater]

Back in the day like Erie describes, you couldn't be too consistent with your catalog photography. Not that the Color House couldn't adjust the colors, but the chrome served as a reference point for them to go by, and they would write contracts that they would "match the chrome". Changing color beyong what was on the chrome was an expensive $$$ author's alteration.

Now I see - I was thinking of either photographic or digital prints - not offset printing. Since they were using the chrome itself as a reference, I can see where the problem came from. These days where everyone wants a digital file, seems like the photographer himself will do the color balancing himself.

[Armin Seeholzer]

I'm voting for Rodenschneid!
Armin Seeholzer

[erie patsellis]

Back in the day like Erie describes, you couldn't be too consistent with your catalog photography. Not that the Color House couldn't adjust the colors, but the chrome served as a reference point for them to go by, and they would write contracts that they would "match the chrome". Changing color beyong what was on the chrome was an expensive $$$ author's alteration.

Exactly, and since we were heavily promoting this crazy idea of actually eliminating strippers (the boring kind) and outputting completly laid out page seps directly, color correction would have involved way more hardware and software than was generally available (hell, at that time the Next cubes were bleeding edge (and not totally stock production boxes, they had no serial nos., etc, draw your own conclusions))

Once we output seps, the sleeved chromes went with the seps, hand delivered. And then the fun began, as I was the only one I trusted to supervise the press runs, went many nights sleeping in the car in the parking lot, waiting for my "plating time" wake up knock on the window....Man I don't miss those days, just the money.

From there it's just as frank says, contract says match the chromes, no matchee, no payee...they worked pretty hard to make sure they matched, needless to say.


erie

[Frank Petronio]

And you could still go through five rounds of corrections from some places!

[erie patsellis]

True,
But imagine if you could use a computer program to actually scan the image, set the text, place the image, and then output seperations...20 years ago it was borderline science fiction, especially to those that worked prepress all day. I remember having a stripper (boring kind again) tell me how she spent all day on a page with something like 10 images on it.

erie

[Frank Petronio]

And adding drop shadows was something like $100 each. I also remember shooting 4x5s for art directors who reduced them in size.

Before every monkey became a Photoshop "expert" I had a good run of 4-5 years of doing those drop shadows, shilouettes, and simple composites for an average of $400 per hour... bought houses and cars with that... (early 1990s, Mac II Ci, etc.)

Those were the days!

[wistarf]

My favorite lens is the Schneider Super Symmar 120 HM, it appears razor sharp, almost surreal in its' crispness and importantly provides the most coverage at my favorite length.

Yes, the Super Symmar HM is a fantastic lens. In my opinion, the best focal length for a "normal" lens is 120mm, and back in 1990 when I bought it, the Super Symmar HM was the only lens I could find at that focal length with a big enough image circle to cover 4x5 with plenty of room for movements. That probably accounts for the excellent edge-to-edge sharpness and clarity.

However, I get more use out of my 90mm Super Angulon and the relatively inexpensive 300mm Nikkor M, which I think is a sleeper. It is an extremely compact and tack sharp lens that I highly recommend if you can pick up a used one.

And regarding the OP's original question, I think that it matters very little what brand you buy, but a lot more what lens or lens family *within* that brand. Each lens family has its own characteristics, strengths and weaknesses, so I think that focusing on Schneider vs. Rodenstock is a bit shortsighted.

[David Millard]

Back to Greg's original question - I'm happy with lenses from Schneider, Fuji, Rodenstock, Nikon and Zeiss on my 23 Technikardan and Technika. I personally have found greater color variation between different lens types from a single manufacturer (e.g., Rodenstock Apo-Ronars and Sironars) than I have in similar lens types from different manufacturers (e.g., Sironars and Symmars). Good luck in your quest!

[pixclixer]

And regarding the OP's original question, I think that it matters very little what brand you buy, but a lot more what lens or lens family *within* that brand. Each lens family has its own characteristics, strengths and weaknesses, so I think that focusing on Schneider vs. Rodenstock is a bit shortsighted.[/QUOTE]

Please focus on Schneider or Rodenstock.
I proposed earlier that if possible we should only buy lenses from those two companies because they are the only ones actively left involved in LF lens developement [future existence of our tools,] manufacture and also support in the US market really [globaly.]

Regarding lens families [types?] This was somewhat the way I indicated that I choose my lenses. I tend towards wide, wide/normal with lots of coverage so I like Schneider Super Symmar XL, HM and Super Angulon XL. However I also like Schneiders' look and I find there is some consistency within the brands.I did suggest that another 'family' I've had need for is the Rodenstock/Sinar Grandagon-N/Sinaron W for it's f4.5 aperture to help me with indoor natural light work. That's a small family for me.

Like I first wrote, think about how you work...
wide, long, close, inside, out, big moves, do you care about size/weight.

[Dave_B]

I personally prefer the Nikkors for their contrast and color rendition although I also have lenses I like from Schneider, Rodenstock, Fuji and Kodak. If one were shooting a catalog or a show, the consistency across a single line of lenses might matter but for the kind of photography most of us do, the lens manufacturer is irrelevant. I have NEVER seen a comment about a photograph that says "this photo is poor because it was shot with a XXXXXX lens, it would have been better with a YYYYYY lens". Despite our fascination with them, for most of us, we are the problem, not our lenses.
Cheers,
Dave B.

[Kerry L. Thalmann]

Please focus on Schneider or Rodenstock.
I proposed earlier that if possible we should only buy lenses from those two companies because they are the only ones actively left involved in LF lens developement.

Please define "actively left involved in LF lens developement". If you're talking about lenses for large format (4x5 and larger) photography, then Fujinon should be considered more "active" than Rodenstock. Other than the 100mm APO-Sironar-S that came out a couple years ago (and is really only useful for roll film fomats up to 6x12cm), Rodenstock hasn't introduced a new lens for general purpose large format photography since the early 1990s. Fuji's CM-W line, conisting of 10 different focal lengths capable of covering 4x5 or larger formats, was introduced in the mid-1990s - 2 to 3 years after the APO Sironar-S line from Rodenstock.

In the mean time, Rodenstock has discontinued over half their large format lenses that were available in the mid-1990s (all the APO Ronars, the APO Sironar-W series, all but two focal lengths in the APO Sironar-N line, all the Grandagon-N focal lengths longer than 90mm, etc.). These days, Fuji has a broader selection of LF lenses in a wider range of focal lengths than Rodenstock.

Does that mean I think everyone should buy Fujinon lenses over Rodenstocks? No, of course not. People should buy the lenses that best serve their needs regardless of who makes them. I'm just trying to correct some of the misinformation in this thread.

If you REALLY want to only support manufacturers who have introduced new large format lenses within the last decade, that would only leave two (for now): Schneider and Cooke.

Kerry

[Arne Croell]

I agree with Kerry that we should not leave out Fuji even though they are not putting any money into distributing their lenses outside Japan. There are some lenses that one cannot get anymore from the other 2; specifically, longer lenses that sacrifice some speed but not performance for low weight and small size. After Nikon left the field, the only lenses available new in that category are the Fujinon-C series and the Fujinon-A in the 240mm focal length. The Apo-Artars, -Ronars, -Germinars as well as the G-Clarons are all gone now and only available used. Schneider and Rodenstock offer either full-size Plasmats or telephotos for anything beyond 210mm, none of which are small or lightweight.

However, I cannot really blame Rodenstock or Schneider for concentrating on the optics for digital capture right now. If that keeps them afloat so they can still make some lenses for us film users, thats ok with me. And the lens types used there are close relatives of LF lenses, so one can hope that maybe some time some of that technology will trickle down to the LF lenses...

Arne

[Steve Hamley]

Arne,

G-Clarons are available new in the 240mm, 270mm, and 305mm focal lengths according to Schneider's site.

http://www.schneideroptics.com/ecommerce/CatalogSubCategoryDisplay.aspx?CID=1112

Steve

[Arne Croell]

Arne,

G-Clarons are available new in the 240mm, 270mm, and 305mm focal lengths according to Schneider's site.

http://www.schneideroptics.com/ecommerce/CatalogSubCategoryDisplay.aspx?CID=1112

Steve

Steve, I am sure they're only selling off existing inventory. They have been gone from the SchneiderKreuznach.com manufacturers web site (different from the US distributor web site) of currently produced lenses for years. Note that its only 3 focal lengths on that page, the 150, 210, and 355mm are not there anymore.

[Steve Hamley]

Arne,

Very well possible. But I do know these haven't been listed on the site for more than a few months. Maybe someone cleaned out a closet and found some? I know I'd probably dig deep and do a 270mm if I didn't already have one that you can't tell from new.

Steve