Have you ever used a Xenotar 210mm F2.8 ?

A FAST Xenotar 210mm F2.8 in Shutter just ended on <a

href="http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=30076&item=3867365393&rd=1"><b>the

auction site.</b></a><BR><BR> Has anyone here used this lens; or know

anything about it? <BR><BR>This auction lens is about from 1960. It

sat at 400 bucks the entire week; and tripled in price in the last few

seconds of the auction; with our buddies winning it. <BR><BR>My

fastest lenses in this region are a 210mm F3.5 Xenar; and a 178mm F2.5

Aero Ektar. The fast Xenotar would have been a cool fast

astrophotography lens!<BR><BR>

I was going to ask the question before the auction ended; but didnt want to spoil the bidding :)

The auction was won by sniping. No doubt that the item will appear for sale at lensandrepro.com in a short period of time.

The shorter 150mm f2.8 Xenotar shows up on Ebay a times and Google searches alot; and is listed in the 1971 Graphics arts Photographic catalog I have. I heard about this 210mm variant long ago; but have never really seen one before this auction tonight.

once I had a 135mm Xenotar: very sharp wide open but very hot - means radioactive. Handle with care or aviod such glowing lenses.

very nice pictures of that lens ,but is that actually a mould/fungus spot or seperation .Ive seen those type of marks in other fast lenses

Sorry to ask an 'off topic' question but what is "sniping"? Thanks!

I stopped by Adorama to take a peek at the lens last week, and it was a pretty astounding

piece of glass. As mentioned, it did have that little "flower" of separation in the front, and

some haze in the rear.

 

I have seen only one before, on eBay about 9 months ago or so, in barrel, which went for

$1000. It was also the same vintage, but in better condition. These are obvious

pretty "rare" (I hate to use that work in reference to ebay) lenses, and the only other

comparable lens which is easily available is the Dallmeyer Pentac. I can't wait to see what

Jeff Kaye at Lens and Repro will charge!

I was the person who purchased the Xenotar 210mm in Barrel a few months ago, had never seen one before but had used the 150mm focal length xenotar. There probably were less than 50 of the 210mm version made, Schneider does not list it on the website or in any brochures so it was probably a special order item. I plan to e-mail Schneider to see if they have any info on the lens, I'll let the group know if Schneider responds. I did put a low bid on the lens that just sold, mostly as the 2 lenses had sequencial serial #'s, would have been nice to get it for $400 though.

 

The story of the lens I have is that the lens was originaly owned by White Sands Missle Range, and was purchased as part of a lot of other Xenotar lenses at goverment auction. I purchased it when it was put on e-bay. This lens is pretty much mint condition in the original box (which has some wear), perfect glass, no haze or cleaning marks, no "Schneideritis", no evidence of the lens ring being mounted, and the smoothest turning iris on any lens I have owned, so I wonder if the lens was ever used by the military.

 

And yes, I am using the lens and not leting it gather dust on a shelf. I had used a 150mm Xenotar with excellent results on my Plaubel with Betterlight Super 8k digital back (so I don't need a shutter), and the 210 exceeds the resolution of the 150 Xenotar. I photograph mostly paintings and other artworks with the setup, so I don't need a lot of coverage for movement, but do need as high a resolution lens as possible. In fact I would put the 210 or 150 xenotar as higher resolution than my 150 super symar xl, not bad for a lens made in 1960! Just like any Xenotar, F2.8 is good only for focusing, (although the flare and shallow depth of field might make a good portrait lens), but stopped down to bettween f4 and f5.6 is where the lens starts to achieve maximum resolution, diffraction starts to lower resoultion below f11. I also wonder if the "N" (normal) designation I see on the barrel mount lenses as opposed to shutter mount lenses means the lens is optimised for flat field at lower magnifications as opposed to a lens optimised at infinity. Both the Barrell mount 150 and 210 xenotars are very flat field when used for copy work. I used to work for a company that made large Process Cameras (Opti-Copy) and as part of my job, tested lenses that were to be used on both 1:1 and enlarging cameras, definitly would have given this lens a 10 on the rating scale!

 

-A.C.Elkins

I remember reading somewhere that during the cold war the resolving power of these Gov't Xenotars was classified info!! Makes a great urban legend and I wish I could back it up with facts. I have 4 150mm Xenotars in my cupboard here at work that get used from time to time on high speed movie cameras. They're excellent performers but color rendition is abnormal. What we used to call a "kodachrome sky" which to me is an un-attractive blue-green. Give me a Fuji sky thank you. I watched the other 210 that Mr. Elkins bought during it's transfer into private hands and again on Ebay. I was 4rth place bidder last night and recognized every bidder over mine. Wishful thinking.

Ellen,

 

"Sniping" means using an automated bidding service that bids in the last few seconds to win an item and avoid running up the price. eSnipe and vrane are common sniping services.

 

Steve

Thanks everybody, especially Arlen, for the info on the lens (I was another bidder, btw, and was quite curious about it). In addition to nonexistent information on the Schneider web site, there was also no mentioning of it in the German printed lens lists that I have, which often list obscure items, or in the Vade Mecum.

 

Jim, as Thomas mentioned, early Xenotars are radioactive like Apo-Lanthars or Repro-Clarons (in the Xenotar case its the last lens element which is "hot"). Could it be that the color rendition is due to the yellowish-brownish discoloration (yellow+blue=green, so a bluegreen sky sounds like it) of these lenses? How do they look like when held over a piece of paper? My 135mm one is certainly yellowish. If this is the case, they did not have that rendition originally, and could also be "cured" by exposure to UV as described elsewhere on this forum.

Arne

If you look at the serial number on the lens in the pic you will see that it is not an earlier type. I dont think this one was radioactive.

 

I have an 80mm Xenotar that I use as a semi-wide on my century graphic and I thought the 210mm would be great for LF portraits even if it was not as sharp as the smaller versions. I must confess that I was watching and lusting after this lens on the auction site. Must be a huge peice of glass, though.

Good Old ACTI Products!<BR>Makers of compact cameras!<BR><A HREF=http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/1238404-lg.jpg target = "_blank">

<IMG SRC=http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/1238404-sm.jpg BORDER=0></A>

Kelly,

 

Close, but Opti-Copy and Acti were very different companies, both making cameras for graphic arts use. Acti made cameras like you pictured, 2 room cameras used mostly at 1:1 or small reductions. Opti made 2 lines of cameras, one was a step and repeat camera used in book and magazine printing, the other was a large overhead enlarger/copy camera reducing to a "small" (mostly 8.5 x 11 film) negative which was then projected using a condensor point light system to full or adjusted size. The largest camera I installed was made for Ford Motor Co. In Dearborn, it had an overhead track 36 feet long, the condensors would allow projection of a 12" x 18" image and the copyboard (and largest image size) was 62 inches tall x 17 feet long. It used a custom designed 24" projection lens which cost us around $12,000 a copy back in the early 80's. Sad to say, most all process cameras have been cut up for scrap, a few are still working out there.

 

Getting back to Xenotars though, I was interested to hear that odd color shifts occur on some lenses. I can't say as I have noticed this, probably because I have never used film or natural lighting with any of my Xenotars. In my use I only use Tungsten lighting, the Betterlight requires an Infared filter over the rear element (a big one for the 210!), and in doing a white balance the camera negates any odd colors the lens might introduce. I do have a 150 Xenotar with a shutter, might shoot a test film outdoors someday and compare it to the Super Symar to see if I get the same shifts.

Arlen; Here I have a PhaseOne 4x5" scan back; and older 35 MegaPixel job. It uses an IR cuttoff filter on the taking lens; and you do a white balance adjust be doing a prescan; and "eyedroppering" a grey object. One can even correct a yellowed radioactive Aero Ektar too. <BR><BR>One Aero Ektar is apart; and the yellow was bleached mostly out; just be leaving the rear group on a south window sill for many many months. <BR><BR>I have not heard much about Radiactive Xenotars in large format lenses before this thread. A 153mm Aero Ektar I have from 1955 is radioactive and yellowed; a Kodak Ektar 113mm projecting/enlarging lens I have from the 1970's is radioactive. <BR><BR>The process camera is mine<BR><BR>The Xenotar 210mm F2.8 looks like a huge lens; I wonder what the military would use a lens like this for; if it wasnt for an aerial lens.

Actually if you check the old Zeiss catalogues this lens had the code name

'FlareMeister'.

 

 

It was produced in small amounts as the chap who had to wheel the trolley

around in the factory handing the elements over for polishing etc had a bad

back and couldn't lift more than one at a time.

 

 

The glass was large and fast and it was well known in the factory that the lens

could only expose an image with four zones even in extreme conditions, but

thanks to the Carl Zeiss coating division this was brought down to just three.

 

When the lens was tested for LPPM they had trouble focusing on the chart

itself!! and lastly after the lens was made and all the publicity junkets set in

motion a note was found on the last page of the design drawings that had a

smiley face and 'April Fool' written in German. I swear that all of this is true!! ;-)

 

 

CP Goerz

Arne, I just got the Xenotar's out and had a look. Definitely some straw colored yellows. Since they're over 40 years old who knows what you'd have seen then. Ours project an image onto Eastman movie film. .75 X 1 inch right out of the middle. Our cameras run at 360 frames per second so getting enough available light and being able to film at f4 to f5.6 with a very sharp lens was the original objective. The Xenotar's still do that very well. My guess is perhaps the 210's were bought for something similar.

The high speed movie camera lens I once used was a 254mm F4.5 Wollensak Raptar for a Fastax camera. Mine is engraved with the actual focal lenght of the lens I own; and is engraved 9.969 inches. This is used for scientice studies; where scaling of an image is done sometimes. Knowing the actual focal length of the actual lens is common in Engineering work; when film frames are studied to the n'th degree.

Jim, this thread may be of interest to you then:

 

<a href=http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=005obo>href=http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=005obo<a\>

 

Maybe you can get them back to near normal colors with some UV bleaching. At least for the 135mm f/3.5 Version the radioactive lens is the back one, so it can be irradiated by a UV lamp without problem. I am not sure, but for the 150mm its probably the same lens.

 

Kelly, I actually measured my 135mm with a counter half a year ago, and it is certainly radioactive - in the range of a few milliSievert/h (factor 10-100 over background at sea level).

 

Darin, the serial no. of the 210 indicated early 1960's - at that time it might have still used thorium glasses. I once measured a Voigtländer Apo-Lanthar from 1966, and that one was certainly still radioactive (despite the claim in the Lens Collectors Vade Mecum that Voigtländer switched already in 1956 - not everything in there is correct).

 

Arne

That should have been a few micro-Sievert/h, not milliSievert....

Thanks for the link Arne. Actually, no one around here cares about a minor color slip. For scientific data gathering it is unimportant. In fact I've got some film in the freezer that's 15 years old and has slipped to magenta and the combination might just cancel each other out. My work world is very different than when I set up the Deardorff.

Arlen, you wrote:

"I also wonder if the "N" (normal) designation I see on the barrel mount lenses as opposed to shutter mount lenses means the lens is optimised for flat field at lower magnifications as opposed to a lens optimised at infinity."

 

I don't think so; the capital N is common on German barrel lenses and usually means "Normalfassung" (standard barrel mount). All the barrel mounted Zeiss Jena Tessars usually say something like N55 or similar, with the number being a nominal diameter, but there is no optical difference compared with shuttered versions.

I have never heard of 210. But I have 80(barrel), 105(Compur), 105

(barrel) and 135/3.5(Compur), all using dayly. Xenotar is known by

its high resolution and yellowish color effect, may be because of

Lanthanum glass, same as Biotar or other high performance, radio

active lenses of B/W era. Xenotar was designed for B/W photos.

<P>

Its image circle is rather big and my 135 covers british <a href=

http://www.photo.net/photo/1908963>half plate</a>.

210 may cover 8x10, I suppose. 105 was designed for 6x9cm but it

covers 4x5. 105 barrel might have been used for process work, because

of its high resolution abily. But I put it in a helicoid for 35mm

use, in which I can get quite unique <a href=http://www.photo.net/

photodb/photo?photo_id=2939938>"Bokeh"</a> (out of focus effect) in

fully opened aperture. It's really unique, no other lens will have

and I am enjoying this individuality. 80 is well known by Rolleiflex

getting high reputation especially from portrait photographers. I

really want to see images by 210.<div></div>

The 210mm Xenotar is now listed on the Lens&Repro web site (used dept.), with the remark "recementing". I guess they sent it off to take care of that one blemish mentioned above. The price column just says "Call..."