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

  • From: Douglas Nygren <dnygr@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 4 Dec 2009 13:57:29 -0500

Thank you for your interesting piece.

Your comment about the corners being sharper with one of the lenses brought a smile to my face.

The designers want that clarity, the reviews always note it, and what do many of us do in the darkroom? We burn the corners in!!!!

Thanks again. I appreciated your comments.

Doug


On Dec 4, 2009, at 12:16 PM, Stephen Attaway wrote:

<x-tad-smaller>I do love my 2.8 Planar, but lets not disparage the Xenotar. Both are wonderful vintage lenses.</x-tad-smaller>
 
<x-tad-smaller>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.</x-tad-smaller>
 
<x-tad-smaller>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.</x-tad-smaller>
 
<x-tad-smaller>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.</x-tad-smaller>

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