Need help understanding Old Lens

[jdylan423]

I just bought a:
135mm F=4.7, Schneider Xenar M-X synch, in Synchro-Compur-P

I don't know much about lens or large format photography. I am trying to learn.
The lens has a notch to select "M" or "X". What does this mean?

Is this a decent lens to get started with?

[j.e.simmons]

Should be a decent lens, and should cover 4x5 with limited movements. The M and X refer to flash - use M with old flash bulbs (you probably don't have any of those) and X with modern electronic flash. If not using flash, you can set it to X.
juan

[jdylan423]

Thanks Juan. Big help

[Glenn Thoreson]

Depending on when it was made, that Xenar lens could be more than just adequate. Since it is in a Compur P shutter, I'd say it's later production and might surprise you.
Enjoy and have fun! :D

[Vick Vickery]

A lot of folks, myself included, tend to set the selector to "X" and tape it in place to make sure it doesn't get knocked back to "M".

[Peter Gomena]

It's a good, sharp lens if it's in good condition. I once owned one on a Crown Graphic and wish I'd never sold it. As others said, it has limited movements on 4x5. It's a press camera lens. Speed is/was more important than coverage.

Peter Gomena

[Lynn Jones]

In my experience, that particular Xenar was the best of them all.

Lynn

[Emmanuel BIGLER]

Welcome to the Tessar-Xenar gang. Probably the most sucessful lens design (4 elements, 3 groups, 4/3) of the XX-st century... before being superseded by various 6/4 formulae.
If you have the serial number of the lens available, a look at the Schneider-Kreuznach list will give you the year of manufacture.
http://www.schneiderkreuznach.com/service/serie.htm

The old catalogues can be downloaded from here
http://schneiderkreuznach.com/archiv/archiv.htm
Check for the slow speeds of your compur shutter. If they appear sticky, this is not a big deal, have the shutter cleaned, lube'd and adjusted (the famous CLA acronym of photo forums ;) ) and you'll be all set for another century or so ;)

Regarding the coverage of a Tessar-Xenar designed for large format cameras, at f/22, they will all cover about their focal length in diameter, plus 15%. For example the image circle of your 135 will be 135x1.15 = about 155 mm. It will cover the 4x5" format (94x120 mm is about 6", 152mm in diameter) but with very little possibility of movements.
In the good old days, 135 mm was the standard focal length of 9x12 cm European cameras (diagonal of the 9x12 format = 84x114mm = 141 mm)