Lens review: The Schneider-Kreuznach Xenar 50mm f/2.8

This review is about the Schneider-Kreuznach Xenar 50mm f/2.8 lens with an M42 mount and 10 aperture blades. 

Schneider made several versions of this lens, mine is produced circa 1958 and recognizable by the "Schneider-Kreuznach Xenar 1:2,8/50" text on the front, supplemented by "Edixa-Reflex" on the focusing ring. Another identifying feature is the aperture ring, to set the aperture you have to pull the ring backwards before changing the aperture setting. The design of the lens is a classical Tessar design with four elements in three groups, called Xenar by Schneider.

Specifications (10 aperture blade version):

Focal length:                        50mm

Minimal focus distance:        0.5 meters

Aperture:                             f/2.8 - f/22

Aperture blades:                  10

Lens elements:                    4 elements in 3 groups

Diameter:                            49mm

Mount:                                M42

Manufacturer:                     Schneider-Kreuznach

Built:                                  late 1950s

Use

This lens is equipped with the M42 mount, making it compatible with a wide range of M42 cameras and with adapters to pretty much every other camera system I use. It takes some getting used to the fact that you have got to pull back the aperture dial before you can change your settings but this also prevents the ring from accidentally moving. Focusing is smooth, the focus ring moves to the right towards infinity. My copy has been modified for digital cameras, meaning that the aperture pin has been pressed down and locked in that position. Thanks to this I need to use stop-down metering when using this lens on an M42 camera.

Images

The images you see below were shot with a Canon EOS 90D set at ISO 200. These images were converted from RAW to JPEG, slightly cropped and resized. No other actions were taken in Photoshop.

f/2.8

f/4

f/5.6

f/8

f/11

f/16

f/22

At f/2.8 there is still plenty of separation. Also at f/2.8 there is very little chromatic aberration visible on this shot. The image is a bit milky at f/2.8. Stopped down to f/4 that milky effect is gone. Chromatic aberration is much reduced when stopping down until it is gone at f/11. In the field the chromatic aberration was more prominent wide open though.

In the field

The images below were all shot using a Canon EOS 90D digital camera fitted with an M42 to EOS adapter. They were converted to JPEG and resized. As the 90D has an APS-C type cropped sensor the outer edges of the lens will not show on the photographs it produces. At this point I haven't used this lens of a full frame or film camera so I cannot comment on the amount of vignetting and loss of sharpness at the extreme edges of a photograph. With the 90D one focuses with the lens wide open before stopping down to the desired f-stop. This is where it gets somewhat irritating as you cannot use the aperture dial without first pulling it back. I found this to be a drawback of this lens. However, this is my only gripe. The lens focuses smoothly and I love the colors it produces. It simply loves reds! Wide open it produces a soft bubble bokeh, circular in the center of the image and more of an ellipse at the edges. When shooting against the light you'll get sort of a glow around bright objects such as flowers. However the lens is quite recessed so it doesn't flare easy. As with most other vintage lenses it suffers from chromatic aberration wide open, when stopped down that pretty much disappears completely. 

wide open, look at that bokeh

wide open

Check that glow!

wide open

stopped down

stopped down

wide open

wide open

chromatic aberration wide open

All in all this is a fun lens from one of the 'other' German lens manufacturers that renders beautiful colors, is capably of nice bokeh wide open and has excellent sharpness stopped down. As I said, my version has the 'pull-back' aperture ring that I found challenging in the field but other than that this is a well-performing lens. Don't let the fact that this a 'slow' lens at f/2.8 stop you from trying it. 

More expired color film developed in black & white chemistry, the experiment continues

As I wrote in my initial post about developing expired color film in black & white chemistry the negatives were a bit dark and in hindsight felt underdeveloped. They were usable (in fact I rather liked them) but very grainy when scanned. 

The film

I tried a new batch from the same Etos Kleurenfilm 100/24 color negative film that expired in 05/2003, essentially rebranded Ferrania Imation Color HP100 film. The fact that this film only has 24 exposures is beneficial for these kinds of experiments were I don't need a 36 exposures roll.

The shoot

This time I brought two cameras along. I went for Pentaxes again, my MZ-S fitted with a Helios 44-2 58mm f/2 and my K1000 fitted with a Helios 44M 58mm f/2. As these lenses have the M42 mount I used Pentax-built M42 - K mount adapters. The MZ-S is a solid performer, I really like the design of this camera and love to use it. In fact, I wish Pentax would have continued this style when they designed their production digital cameras. It was also a joy to use my K1000 again, a completely different beast but I like the Spotmatic design that this camera has. I wanted similar results from both cameras hence the Helios lenses. I know that the 44-2 and the 44M are different from each other but for my purposes this was good enough. It was overcast for most of the day so I used both lenses wide open most of the time. I shot the film at box speed and finished both rolls.

Developing

This time, I used Adonal developer diluted 1:50 but extended the developing time to 15:30 minutes at 20 degrees Celsius. Much like my first attempt the negatives came out quite dark. I now wonder if I should have shot this as ISO 50 rather than ISO 100 film given that this film expired 18 years ago. One to try when shooting the next batch.

The results

Well, the grain is still there...

Very dark, yet you can still see some faint traces of the red of the traffic sign in the shot.

Again rather dark.

These images were only resized, no further post-processing was done. My first reaction is that they are rather dark, but those scenes were not very bright to begin with. Certainly the grain is still there. I need to scan a few more examples but for now I'm not as thrilled with the results as last time... I gather Adonal is a very weak color developer as these images are no monochromes, that gives these shots an interesting look. 

So what are your thoughts on developing old C41 film in B&W chemistry? Drop me a line below.