[rollei_list] Re: Heliar, Sonnar, Planar [WAS Re: off topic rants]

  • From: "Stephen Attaway" <stephen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 4 Dec 2009 09:16:07 -0800

I do love my 2.8 Planar, but lets not disparage the Xenotar. Both are wonderful 
vintage lenses. 

I don't have a Xenotar to make a detailed comparison, but I am very familiar 
with the Xenar and Tessar. Both the older lenses draw 'like a tessar' - the 
center is sharp wide open, the edges don't come up until you are well stopped 
down. Great plasticity, or roundness to the transition between sharp and 
unsharp, that combined with the perfect Gaussian blur of the out of focus parts 
of the image gives you that classic f4 windowlight portrait. As Herbert Keppler 
said in Modern Photography 50 or so years ago 'a good Tessar takes some 
beating' - nearly every professional photo taken from the mid-thirties to the 
mid 50s was taken with a tessar formula lens.

I love working with tessars, but prefer the Planar.  I think the Planar gives 
an image that keeps most of the good things from the Tessar (plasticity, fine 
gradation of tonality) but adds transparency and clarity to detail, especially 
shadow detail - partly because I suspect the Planar's built in uv filtering is 
better than the separate uv filter I use on my Xenar. And the Planar is better 
in the corners opened up, although still not sharp corner to corner.

So I would put the Planar/Xenotar in a separate class than the Tessar/Xenar. 
Don't know about the recomputed Tessar with a Latheneum element in the 'T'. I 
can't stand cameras with coupled evs shutters...so I stick with my Rolleicord 
IV with its coated Xenar.





From: Sanders McNew 
Sent: Thursday, December 03, 2009 7:38 PM
To: rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
Subject: [rollei_list] Heliar, Sonnar, Planar [WAS Re: off topic rants]


Okay so to pick up on Peter's query, let me expand it into territory
not exactly on-topic, but nonetheless near and dear to the hearts
of many assembled here.  We all love our Planars.  I am also
smitten with the Heliar in my Medalist, and the Sonnars in my 
Teles are to die for.  (The Sonnars in the Nikkor and Zeiss LTMs 
are pretty spiffy too.)


Which is best?  <Insert evil grin here.>  Which do you prefer and
what do you see as the strengths of each?






On Dec 3, 2009, at 1:07 AM, FreeLists Mailing List Manager wrote:






Peter K. wrote:


Here, here. And why Zeiss Planars are better than Schneiders Xenoslobs.

On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 4:34 PM, <stephen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Enough, already!
>
> Lets get back to talking about the 'T' meter and other stuff that really 
> matters...
>
>

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