Triotar or xenar

ronlamarsh · Jun 17, 2008

I have a Rolleicord II K3 in excellent condition and scrapped a beat up later model for the screen and mirror. The question is should I or can I also exchange the lenses as the scrap camera had a xenar in great condition. The exsisting Triotar is spotless also.

butterflydream · Jun 17, 2008

Are you going to take color or bw?

Xenar, Rolleiflex T

Triotar, Rolleicord II

Xenar is more modern lens, sharper to the corners, more contrasty and better in color. But Triotar is also nice lens for soft tone. It makes good portrait with beautiful bokeh, but it makes flare very often as well. I like both and it would be hard for me to decide.

ricksplace · Jun 17, 2008

Xenar hands down over the triotar. The triotar is a triplet, the Xenar is a Tessar-type 4 element design.

ntenny · Jun 17, 2008

butterflydream said:
Xenar is more modern lens, sharper to the corners, more contrasty and better in color. But Triotar is also nice lens for soft tone. It makes good portrait with beautiful bokeh, but it makes flare very often as well. I like both and it would be hard for me to decide.

Very well said.

My Rolleicord has a Xenar, and it's a really excellent lens with a lot of character, your basic good example of a Tessar-type lens. But I think the potential of good triplets is really underrated, and a Triotar should be reliably a good triplet. My inclination would be to leave the original body and lens together unless there's a specific reason *not* to, but it's really a judgement call.

-NT

elekm · Jun 18, 2008

The Carl Zeiss Triotar is a well-designed triplet.

As others have pointed out, the Xenar is a four-element Tessar-type design and performs much like a Tessar. Very sharp with round out-of-focus areas when shot wide open to about f/5.6 at medium distances.

If you make the swap, you must ensure that the lens is collimated correctly to ensure accurate focusing at infinity and other distances.

Ian Grant · Jun 18, 2008

Somewhere I have a Triotar, off a long gone Rolleicord, it wasn't a bad lens, even with E6, but I'd far rather have a Xenar or modern (50's onwards) Tessar.

If you can set the Xenar up to focus correctly then you'll have a great camera, capable of excellent results.

Ian

Steve Smith · Jun 18, 2008

Are they both the same focal length? If not, you may need to change the viewing lens as well. Probably a good idea anyway.

Steve.

JPD · Jun 18, 2008

I wouldn't exchange the lenses. You would have to adjust the focus. The Triotar is one of the best three element lenses, soft fully open and very sharp stopped down. If you want a Rolleicord with Xenar, they aren't that expensive. I've had three Rolleicords with Xenar. Two of the Xenars were bad, and lacked the biting sharpness (yes they were checked and collimated). I have five Rolleicords with Triotar at the moment, and all of them are very good. Only the 3,8 Triotar on my Rolleicord I is soft.

Triotar 4,5/75mm:

ronlamarsh · Jun 20, 2008

Thank you all for your input I think I'll keep the original camera as is now that I have a mirror and focus screen for it from the scrapped unit.

Triotar or xenar

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency