Rollei Xenar users: is there really a UV issue?

Recently bought a Rolleicord Va and in researching it, I've come across the advice, which seems to have originated from Rollei themselves, that this camera's Xenar lens needs a UV filter -- the idea being that it does not block very much if any UV inherently. I think they mention high altitude, especially.

In 50 years of shooting, I've never really seen UV filters make a difference in images and so I haven't used them much. But my mind is open. Anyone have any experiences, results, or opinions on whether the Xenar in the Rolleicord (and some earlier Rolleiflexes, I gather) really does pass enough UV to negatively impact pictures, color or B&W?

I can't believe the Xenar would be any different than the Tessar of that vintage and style of lens coating. Never heard of anybody saying the Tessar needs a UV filter to get good results. Many camera manufactures back then recommended UV or skylight filters for their lenses, but as a requirement for good pictures? Yes, a UV filter works in certain conditions and makes a big difference in picture clarity, but in some picture taking situations it doesn't make any difference at all.

Nonsense. Where did you read that? What exactly did you read? I've never seen such advise nor have I needed a filter in the many years using Rolleicord with Xenar (or any other camera/lens combination). The only thing I've ever seen from Rollei refers to a benefit at high altitudes and seascapes. which is exactly the same as every other camera/filter maker's advise.

John Wiegerink said:

I can't believe the Xenar would be any different than the Tessar of that vintage and style of lens coating. Never heard of anybody saying the Tessar needs a UV filter to get good results. Many camera manufactures back then recommended UV or skylight filters for their lenses, but as a requirement for good pictures? Yes, a UV filter works in certain conditions and makes a big difference in picture clarity, but in some picture taking situations it doesn't make any difference at all.

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the only reason for using UV filters on all my lenses is to protect the front element.

UV filters were advertised as beneficial at high altitudes to block UV light and cut through haze. Almost all filter brochures showed a with and without image back then. Silver halide based film is sensitive to UV, and most vintage lenses transmit a fair bit of UV.

Before WWII, some Voigtlander cameras came with a yellow filter installed that could be flipped out of the way. This could be seen as an extreme UV filter in some ways, filtering out blue light. But maybe not, as UV is shorter wavelength than blue so maybe the yellow filter didn't work in the UV spectrum. Well, the yellow was to compensate for the excess blue sensitivity of panchromatic films at this time. Maybe the UV filter recommendation was an intermediate step as pan films developed a more balanced spectral response.

I've never heard anything specific for Xenar lenses and UV filters. Nor for other Schneider lenses.

It's all a bit funny as the addition of a blue haze as you go more and more distant was considered a step forward in realistic painting during the Renaissance Interesting to compare the distant mountain renderings of Ansel Adams (crisp clarity) and Robert Adams (some haziness).

I would suggest trying whatever filter you have access to and seeing if you like it. If so, keep using it. Me, I have a thing for the Rollei hellgrun, light green, filter, along the lines of an X0 yellow green. Darkens skies a bit and opens up trees and such. If you look at Ilford's spectral response curves, you'll see a slight dip at the green area, so maybe a light green compensates for this. But these are personal issues on the level of religious beliefs or such, not technical demands.

BrianShaw said:

Nonsense. Where did you read that? What exactly did you read?

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I read a handful of different versions of it in various places, each with a different mix of details. But here's one site that has some pictures of what is evidently a Rollei filter brochure from the '50s. If you scroll down to the photo of the "Table of Rollei Filters" you can see the information for the Rollei H1 filter, where it says:

UV-Filter, especially designed for long-distance colour photography. Absorbs ultra-violet rays, subdues predominance of blue and cuts aerial haze in distance shots.

Not necessary for use with the 5-element lenses Planar, Xenotar, and Sonnar

As I think about it a bit more, the H1 filter actually sounds like a Skylight, rather than a strict UV. But in any case, this is the source of my wondering if the Xenar in my Rolleicord might need a little more help with UV than the newer lenses I've shot with for years and which I've gotten used to using without any UV filtration.

I certainly didn't assume this was a real thing, but since Rollei appears to have talked about it back in the day, I thought I'd ask for any experiences folks might have.

Edit: There's also a version of the Xenar/Tessar story on the rolleigraphy.eu web site, under the "Rolleiflex filters for monochrome photography" heading.

Dan Daniel said:

I've never heard anything specific for Xenar lenses and UV filters. Nor for other Schneider lenses.

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I'm very familiar with manufacturer's claims about UV filters, and as I said, don't pay any attention to them. But it was the specific advice that Rollei recommended a UV (actually H1, which is maybe more of a Skylight; see my other response above) filter for the Xenar/Tessar but not for the Planar/Xenotar that got me wondering.

Dan Daniel said:

I would suggest trying whatever filter you have access to and seeing if you like it.

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Always the best advice, but I don't have any UV filters that are easily usable with my Rolleicord. To test the notion on my Rolleicord on enough different pictures/scenes to learn anything, I'd need to buy a Bay 1 UV or Skylight. They aren't expensive, but hey, twenty bucks is twenty bucks, whereas asking a question on Photrio is free. For better or worse.

Dan Daniel said:

Me, I have a thing for the Rollei hellgrun, light green, filter, along the lines of an X0 yellow green. Darkens skies a bit and opens up trees and such.

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As it happens, I did buy some contrast filters for my Rolleicord -- because I know for sure they can be useful -- and one of them was a Walz yellow-green, very similar to an X0. So I got that covered.

And I may buy a Rollei hellrot and hellblau just because I love the names. To my American ear, they sound like comic book villains.

villagephotog said:

I read a handful of different versions of it in various places, each with a different mix of details. But here's one site that has some pictures of what is evidently a Rollei filter brochure from the '50s. If you scroll down to the photo of the "Table of Rollei Filters" you can see the information for the Rollei H1 filter, where it says:

UV-Filter, especially designed for long-distance colour photography. Absorbs ultra-violet rays, subdues predominance of blue and cuts aerial haze in distance shots.

Not necessary for use with the 5-element lenses Planar, Xenotar, and Sonnar

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All that means is that the Planar, Xenotar, and Sonnar already have some glass element in them that happens to absorb light at the near-UV wavelengths (say 380-400 nm), so that the UV filter (blocks blueward of ~390nm) is redundant for those lenses. It doesn't say that the UV filter is necessary to avoid bad pictures with a Tessar or Xenar. If you are photographing under the specific circumstances called out in that description, like aerial or long distance shots, you might try using a UV filter.

It's actually quite difficult to make a lens that transmits and images well beyond the very-near-UV, because the selection of glass with good transmission becomes very limited. So generally, photographic lenses probably don't transmit well blueward of (guessing) about 360-400 nm depending on design. If you do something like wet plate photography finding a lens that transmits well in the very blue to near UV may be advantageous, but for everyone else it's a push.

Schott, makers of many optical glasses, has a white paper on glass transmission here: https://media.schott.com/api/public/content/3d5861d824f64033aafd5353a21f7603?v=ab765931

If you look at Section 2.1 and Figure 4, one of the issues preventing UV/blue transmission is that many flint glasses don't transmit well in the blue/UV, and that reformulation of flint glasses to eliminate lead resulted in some issues with lower blue/UV transmission (since partially addressed by manufacturing techniques, from what Schott appears to be saying).

villagephotog said:

I read a handful of different versions of it in various places, each with a different mix of details. But here's one site that has some pictures of what is evidently a Rollei filter brochure from the '50s. If you scroll down to the photo of the "Table of Rollei Filters" you can see the information for the Rollei H1 filter, where it says:

UV-Filter, especially designed for long-distance colour photography. Absorbs ultra-violet rays, subdues predominance of blue and cuts aerial haze in distance shots.

Not necessary for use with the 5-element lenses Planar, Xenotar, and Sonnar

As I think about it a bit more, the H1 filter actually sounds like a Skylight, rather than a strict UV. But in any case, this is the source of my wondering if the Xenar in my Rolleicord might need a little more help with UV than the newer lenses I've shot with for years and which I've gotten used to using without any UV filtration.

I certainly didn't assume this was a real thing, but since Rollei appears to have talked about it back in the day, I thought I'd ask for any experiences folks might have.

Edit: There's also a version of the Xenar/Tessar story on the rolleigraphy.eu web site, under the "Rolleiflex filters for monochrome photography" heading.

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The complete sentence should be cited for accuracy! “Planar, Xenotar and Sonnar do not need it as the glasses to make these lenses have built in “similar material”.” This is when I started reading that site very carefully as that’s a very odd and ambiguous statement. Probably referring to advanced coating but thats quite a bit different than a UV filter.

Im still curious where you’ve read this handful of other versions. It’s such an odd claim…

".... Later lenses like Planars and Xenotars had that problem solved by using a UV blocking lens cement.The Rolleiflex T of 1958 was equipped with a recomputed Tessar with the UV blocking cement...."

So it was the cement...

Ahhhh…

Yet the filter makers and camera manufacturers kept making, selling, and promoting the use of UV filters for the specific general-photography applications cited earlier in the thread…

BrianShaw said:

The complete sentence should be cited for accuracy!

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Well, I was was intentionally only quoting Rollei, from their brochure, because they are the actual authority on this question. The bit about "similar materials" that you quoted was written by the web site author, so doesn't have any particular credibility to me. (But see below for an analogous statement by Rollei themselves, which is likely the basis of the web site author's statement.)

I agree it's an odd claim, and it surprised me when I came across it. There's more from the same Rollei brochure. It's in the last page that the web site photographed, titled "Color as you desire". It says:

H1 Filter for Distance Shots
A colorless filter for daylight color film. It reduces the atmospheric haze in distance shots. Recommended for general use in color photography. (Available in bayonet size I only. The Planar, Xenotar, and Sonnar lenses have the inherent characteristics of the H1-filter.)

As an aside, I love the quirky 1950s punctuation of this brochure.

Anyway, like you, I find these ideas a little odd, based on having shot hundreds of thousands of pictures with scores of lenses. But they are right there in a Rollei brochure. So that's why I decided to ask.

reddesert said:

It doesn't say that the UV filter is necessary to avoid bad pictures with a Tessar or Xenar. If you are photographing under the specific circumstances called out in that description, like aerial or long distance shots, you might try using a UV filter.

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Right, I didn't interpret it as dooming me to bad pictures. As I said, my inclination is to doubt the necessity of a UV filter. I was just curious about whether anyone had observed a negative impact of some kind that was unusual compared to other lenses, since Rollei themselves are putting their own lenses in two different buckets here.

By the way, elsewhere in their brochure, they say the H1 filter is "Recommended for general use in color photography. (Available in bayonet size I only. The Planar, Xenotar, and Sonnar lenses have the inherent characteristics of the H1-filter.)"

It's a mixed message: recommended for distant shots but also recommended for general use. That brochure needed a better editor.

Anyway, it's likely I won't find anyone with personal experience with testing this one way or the other, but it never hurts to ask.

Some of this might be tied to the intended market. The 'Flexes were for 'serious' photographers and professionals. 'Cords were more for general snapshooters, etc. Pros will do tests, have access to filters, etc. Simple rules for snapshooters were easier.

I find it interesting that when they came out with the f/3.5 Planars and Xenotars, they put Bayonet II filter mounts on the camera. there is NO real reason for this. The 3.5 Planar and Xenotar are the same diameter as the 3.5 Xenar and Tessar, give or take in a way that makes them interchageable in a Bay I system.

BUT! A pro won't use the hack system of weekend amateurs, of course, so they need a new size to differentiate themselves from the 'Cord crowd. The fact that this allowed Rollei to sell a whole new line of filters and accessories was, of course, simply acciedental, not some crass marketing and sales gambit

villagephotog said:

It's a mixed message: recommended for distant shots but also recommended for general use. That brochure needed a better editor.

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I now see, and agree that there is either a mixed message or incomplete information. It seems very important to discriminate between the H1 and the UV filter. Both filter UV but there also appear to be a significant difference, based on the filter factor alone. I can't figure out why the H1 was offered or who would use it, but I know why the UV filter exists...

And UV filyers might be different.1b with color film at UV prone environment will make a difference for sure.

I think the simplest explanation is that Rollei would sell more filters.