schneideritis

hi all-

 

i did a search and nothing came up on this one, maybe i am spelling it wrong.

 

what's the real story with the tiny spots on older schneider lenses?

 

do they effect the image or not?

 

thanks everyone!

 

-david

I've never had it on any of my four Schneider lenses so can't speak from experience but from all I've read they have no effect on the image.

I always wondered about this condition - surely it must have some effect on the image quality? It might do in laboratory tests but in real world photography ... nothing! I happily use a lovely 120mm f8 with a mild dose of schneideritis in the rear elements with no adverse effect that i can tell - and I'm a stickler for sharpness/contrast etc! The only effect is resale value!

David,

 

I've had it in both my 240 and 360 Symmars... with absolutely NO detrimental effect

whatsoever.

 

So, don't waste your time worrying about it... go out and shoot instead! :)

 

Cheers

david,

 

i have a 150/5,6 symmar-s with schneideritis. now i was told by schneider themselves,

that this was a failure matte paint during a series of lenses. obviously tiny spots of paint

come off the body, being enlarged by the lens glass. schneider points out that 1. as long

as no particles enter the actual lens there would be no lack in image quality at all and 2.

they are able to clean and recoat the interior of the lens at a cost of in my case 80-120

euros.

since my images are perfect from the technical aspect ;-) i did not bother getting that

done.

As an aside, Schneideritis is not only restricted to Schneider lenses - I have both a Nikkor and a Fuijnon lens that have some Schneiderities issues, but as the previous posters noted, it has no impact whatsoever on picture quality. It might have an impact though when you want to resell the lens later on.

"It might have an impact though when you want to resell the lens later on."

 

Totally! I practically stole a Symmar-S 210 on FeeBay that had it. I've been using it for over a year with no detrimetnal effects compared to my well coated lenses. I thought it might cause flare with possible points of internal reflection, but it behaves exactly like my other MC lenses. Good thing I don't ever plan on selling it!

"a failure matte paint during a series of lenses"

 

That's funny. I've seen this condition on every Schneider lens I've owned or seen, that wasn't new. If it's a failure in the matte paint, they should have fixed it decades ago!

By looking at the lens, you'd think there should be little flecks of black paint floating around in there. Not so.

 

I wouldn't worry about it.

I disassembled an old Symmar that had Schneideritis in order to clean haze off of the internal

glass surfaces. Viewing the glass elements from the outside, the paint appeared intact. The

paint had detached from the glass in small spots, but was still a single integral layer, with no

broken off flecks.

 

In my opinion, the internal haze that some of these old lenses get will cause much larger

image degradation than Schneideritis, reducing contrast. If I had thought of it, I would have

done a before and after experiment. The good news is that the haze cleaned off easily.

I used for a while a set of Schneider lenses from the 1960s that had been exposed to high humidty (but not actual water) due to flooding and many had "bubbles" within the glued surfaces. However, I don't think is it too damaging to the image either since the images themselves all seemed fine and without noticable flare or contrast issues. I've never seen this pattern in any other brand of lenses although I'm sure it is possible.

"Schneideritis" (ughh! I hate that word) is caused by the black anti-reflection paint breaking away from the ground edges of the lens elements. The little spots you can see are air/glass reflections from the rim of the lenses.

 

It's not serious, unless a whole lot of paint breaks loose. Then the loose paint can get into the light path and cause black spots and dust. The tiny amount of extra flare from the little speckles is usually not enough to make a noticeable difference to the image quality.

 

At least Schneideritis is better than Rodenstockitis. Rodenstock lenses of a certain vintage have a tendency for their cemented elements to start parting. First sign of this is a nice rainbow coloured ring round the edges of the front or rear glasses, which gradually creeps in toward the centre of the lens. Now that IS bad news.

thanks everyone for the insight!

 

-david

which vintage and/or lineage of Rodenstocks?

A very nice friend lent me his Bessa II with Color Heliar for an unspecified period. It had been up in his attic. And, after years of cooling and heating, the matte-black paint around the outside of the lens group had flecked off all over the back of the lens. So with great care and trembling, I managed to remove most of it by using the bristles of an old, soft, camel-hair lens brush to gently nudge the flecks off (from the side).

 

That it takes wonderful photos came as no surprise!

 

Dave

Probably a (static-charged) CCD sensor brush would work well...

"which vintage and/or lineage of Rodenstocks?"

 

The first series of Sironar Plasmats. They were oddly unsymmetrical convertibles. The front being rather huge and the rear smaller. A 240 converts to like 700mm with the front gone. I've had 3 of these go to pieces.

I should have also mentioned that somewhere in my archives I have a correspondence with Schneider Kruesnach Service Representative that states that the "so-called" Schneideritis has no effect what-so-ever on imageing. Schneider considers it such a non-event that they don't cover the problem under warranty. Just another minor event for the fuss budgets to downgrade a whole lot of superb lenses. I'm sure every Schneider lens I own plus a whole bunch of Wollensaks and Gundlach's all have "Schneideritis".

Pete, nearly all of the 58/5.6 Grandagons I've seen, including mine, have bad separations front and rear. Mine has mild schneideritis too.

 

Many of my Boyer lenses have severe schneideritis. The problem isn't confined to Germany.

I have a 135mm/f5.6 schneider enlarger lens. There are white flakes showing at the interface of the barrel and the front lens element rim. I have not seen any flakes on the interior glass surfaces or on the iris blades. Whatever these flakes are, they are staying where they are. My lens is close to 26 years old. I have not noticed any deterioration of enlarged images either.