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Thread: Need help understanding Old Lens

  1. #1

    Join Date
    Aug 2010
    Posts
    19

    Need help understanding Old Lens

    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?

  2. #2

    Join Date
    Oct 2003
    Location
    St. Simons Island, Georgia
    Posts
    880

    Re: Need help understanding Old Lens

    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

  3. #3

    Join Date
    Aug 2010
    Posts
    19

    Re: Need help understanding Old Lens

    Thanks Juan. Big help

  4. #4

    Join Date
    Oct 2004
    Location
    S.W. Wyoming
    Posts
    1,137

    Re: Need help understanding Old Lens

    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!

  5. #5

    Join Date
    Sep 2004
    Location
    Gulfport, MS, USA
    Posts
    873

    Re: Need help understanding Old Lens

    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".

  6. #6

    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Location
    Portland, OR USA
    Posts
    747

    Re: Need help understanding Old Lens

    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

  7. #7

    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    Austin, TX
    Posts
    435

    Re: Need help understanding Old Lens

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

    Lynn

  8. #8

    Join Date
    Jan 2002
    Location
    Besançon, France
    Posts
    1,617

    Re: Need help understanding Old Lens

    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 before being superseded by various 6/4 formulae.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)

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