Schneider-Kreuznach Xenar 50/2.8 - first impressions

[Retro]

Here the lens:



And here a test-photo:



To compare with the Carl Zeiss Jena Pancolar 50/1.8:



The comparison is not taken too seriously, because I did different picture post-procession (with the RAW-photos) and the photos were created at different times, different perspectives and different light conditions.

Roughly one can say, that the Xenar 50/2.8 produces realistic colors and sharp photos.
The Pancolar produces warm colors and is very sharp even wide open.

[Attila]

Xenar looks more close to AF lenses

[patrickh]

That looks like a nice lens. The colours are at least partially due to the rendition of the SD and the changing light source (our infamous WB boogie). This makes comparison very difficult.


patrickh

[Richard_D]

Looks very promising. I'd like to see more shots.

[Tesselator]

Here's some of mine. It's a slightly different version of the lens but it's a VERY nice lens. It looks mighty cool mounted and easily competes with the best Tessar designs out there.

At F/8:








And hand-held at 1/8s




Wide Open:



Sorry about the slight motion blur (camera movement) there:



Still, those last show what it can do wide open... Here's some 100% crops of the last one:




And here's what the lens looks like. The aperture scale on it is a dynamic red ring that almost looks like liquid in a tube that flows out to range indices. I think it's definitely one I'll keep in my collection.







Keep in mind that these are on a GH1 (m4/3) so the 100% crops are not going to look like you FF'ers are used to.

[caspert79]

Seems to be a very nice lens!

[martinsmith99]

Those samples look amazing. Are you sure the pic of the dogs is wide open as there seems to be a lot in focus.

[kds315*]

A very well known performer!!

Some I took using a f1.9/40mm Xenar fully open.

[estudleon]

The xenar 50 is one of the better tessar's design lens.

The differences among both xenars are logical, the Retro's xenar is a 1954 lens, while the Tesselator's xenar is a 1960/1981 made for edixa one.

Note than the second has the purple reflection (benefict the green transmission) that wasn't in the old german's tessar design lenses.

I would like to see a comparison among the xenon 1,9 and the xenar 2,8 normals schneiders.

Rino.

[agent_cooper]

am I wrong or do these lenses show very low CA???
I own a F2/50 Cine Xenar with Arri mount, but everytime I simply hold the lens in front of my 7D I am amazed by the CA free image it delivers.

[Phenix jc]

A great lens


(G1)

[ManualFocus-G]

[eggboy]

The prewar small format f2.8 Xenars were actually 5 element 'tessar' designs...and render somewhat smoother out of focus areas than Tessar types.

Not sure if the post war ones were 5 elements. I have a prewar one that needs some work (focus frozen) but I can tell by the reflections it's a 5 element design.



If you count the reflections you may be able to confirm the amount of elements yours has.

[titrisol70]

PostWar Xenars were 5 element at least at the beginning
AGFA Karat-Xenar has 5 element in the Karat 12 (~1948)