Lens in Question

[Bruce Osgood]

I'm considering an eBay bid on a SCHNEIDER 240mm ƒ5.5 TELE-XENAR. Is anybody familiar with this lens, it dates prior to the 1960's and reported to be coated and flawless. It is in a LINHOF' PRESS-COMPUR SHUTTER which is also reported to work but accuracy cannot be verified.

One concern for me is the "TELE" aspect, as I'm not sure just what that means here, as opposed to a non-tele.

Anybody have insights they are willing to share? Oh, I'd be wearing it on a Bush Pressman 4X5.

TIA

 

[Tom Duffy]

Bruce,
Tele means that it's a telephoto design rather than a normal long focus lens. A long focus 240mm focuses at infinity with 240mm of belows extension; a telephoto design by contrast, needs about 1/3 less bellows extension for infinity focus. Two drawbacks to a telephoto design: generally a regular long focus lens is a little sharper and, (something technical about nodal points) when you use front tilt movements with a telephoto on a viewcamera, the image will move vertically on the groundglass, something a non telephoto won't do.
I don't know anything about the Bush Pressman. Is the bellows short enough that you need a telephoto to get a comfortable focus range?

 

[Ole]

If I were you I wouldn't bother about the problems when using front movements, because this lens won't have enough coverage to use any! In fact it won't cover 4x5" at all...

The 240/5.5 Tele-Xenar was made for 9x12cm film, which it covers straight on. Due to the construction there is hardly any increasi in coverage on stopping down, either. For 4x5" look for the 270mm or (even better) the 360mm which covers 5x7".

 

[Bruce Osgood]

Tom and Ole, Thank you very much, you've saved me some bidding frustrations. Your advice is well taken.

 

[Ole]

I'll just add that I have nothing against Tele-Xenars in general, I own and use a 360/5,5. It is a very good lens, capable of good sharpness and should not be dismissed as inferior to a "normal" lens. But the coverage is significantly less than a Xenar of the same focal length; I have used the 360 on 5x7" but prefer it on 4x5".

Among other things I used it for shooting a solar eclipse, four exposures on the same 9x12cm sheet. No visible flare - I mean none. None at all. And that was shooting directly into the sun (of course).