List of Sonnar Lenses

Hacker said:
Is the Quinon coated?

3379202438_7205a441d0_o.jpg
Click to expand...
I am sure the Quinon is coated; mine appears coated, anyway. It was made in the 50's, and Steinheil knew what they were doing. It is a pretty contrasty for its time.

Cheers,

David
 
Ahhh, another Quinon!
The Quinon is coated, but doesn't have a strong colour shine on the lens surfaces. So I think it can only be single coating. I have to do some scanning, I did a straight comparison in the field between my Quinon and the DR Summicron. The separation in the Quinon's rear elements wasn't really pronounced then.

How many Quinons do we have at RFf? David, Stephen and me? Others?
 
laptoprob said:
Ahhh, another Quinon!
The Quinon is coated, but doesn't have a strong colour shine on the lens surfaces. So I think it can only be single coating. I have to do some scanning, I did a straight comparison in the field between my Quinon and the DR Summicron. The separation in the Quinon's rear elements wasn't really pronounced then.

How many Quinons do we have at RFf? David, Stephen and me? Others?
Click to expand...

I noticed that in a picture below, the Quinon has the words VL and says 5cm. Mine has no VL and says 50mm? 😕

3280089048_89b8296f41_o.jpg
 
raid said:
Why is the Luxon so hard to find for sale?
Click to expand...

Hi Raid,
Optical houses range from the great makers like Zeiss,Schneider,Voigtlander,to second tier makers such as Angenieux,Wollensak,Steinheil,to third tier makers such as Schact,Enna,and Meyer.
Then you have lens makers that tend to make their optics for the mass produced lower quality cameras such as Staeble,and Roeschlein.
Braun tended to favour the lower end lens manufacturers for most of their lens requirements although some Super Paxettes could be ordered with Zeiss Tessars or Schneider Xenars but of course these cost considerably more.
The Roeschlein- Luxon lens did not have a big take-up with Paxette/Super Paxette buyers who either bought the expensive models fitted with Tessars or Xenars or the cheap models fitted with the Pointar lenses also made by Roeschlein.
It appears that Luxon lenses by Roeschlein were not in great demand and therefore not made in great numbers because,most photographers who wanted a Paxette/Super Paxette with the best lens available, and could afford it, went for the Zeiss Tessar or the Schneider Xenar from the top German optical makers.
Although Paxette lenses are 39mm screw fitting, they do not match Leica cameras ie.28.8 mm optical registration, neither do they have rangefinder coupling that matches the Leica.They can be adapted for use with the Leica but cost of adaptation and other shortcomings due to adaptation, wouldn't be cost justified.Why not put your money into a good quality Leica lens such as an Elmar or Summitar,or even a Canon or Nikkor optic, and should you decide later to need to sell you can recoup your original outlay.I am not deriding the Luxon,but how many photographers have an "adapted Paxette Luxon for Leica" on their "Wish List".
 
Last edited:
I adapted the Luxon for Raid using a J-3 mount. It is RF coupled for the Leica. Done as a "challenge". J-3's with bad glass run about $50~$70, and can be used to adapt quite a few lenses to LTM. But not a Helios-103... Or a Carl Zeiss Opton 50/1.5. Still working on that one.

Raid has quite a few lenses, including some Zeiss Sonnars adapted to LTM and shimmed for the Leica.
 
M2user said:
Hi Raid,
Optical houses range from the great makers like Zeiss,Schneider,Voigtlander,to second tier makers such as Angenieux,Wollensak,Steinheil,to third tier makers such as Schact,Enna,Meyer and Isco.
Then you have lens makers that tend to make their optics for the mass produced lower quality cameras such as Staeble,and Roeschlein.
Braun tended to favour the lower end lens manufacturers for most of their lens requirements although some Super Paxettes could be ordered with Zeiss Tessars or Schneider Xenars but of course these cost considerably more.
The Roeschlein- Luxon lens did not have a big take-up with Paxette/Super Paxette buyers who either bought the expensive models fitted with Tessars or Xenars or the cheap models fitted with the Pointar lenses also made by Roeschlein.
It appears that Luxon lenses by Roeschlein were not in great demand and therefore not made in great numbers because,most photographers who wanted a Paxette/Super Paxette with the best lens available, and could afford it, went for the Zeiss Tessar or the Schneider Xenar from the top German optical makers.
Although Paxette lenses are 39mm screw fitting, they do not match Leica cameras ie.28.8 mm optical registration, neither do they have rangefinder coupling that matches the Leica.They can be adapted for use with the Leica but cost of adaptation and other shortcomings due to adaptation, wouldn't be cost justified.Why not put your money into a good quality Leica lens such as an Elmar or Summitar,or even a Canon or Nikkor optic, and should you decide later to need to sell you can recoup your original outlay.I am not deriding the Luxon,but how many photographers have an "adapted Paxette Luxon for Leica" on their "Wish List".
Click to expand...

Hi M2User,
I find your logic quite reasonable for the Luxon lack of availability. The LTM Luxon, as adapted by Brian, is quite useful in providing an alternative optical design for somewhat different looking portraits when used wide open. My current count of 50mm LTM lenses is over twenty these days, and I have the "regular" Summicrons and Sonnars in addition to Nikon and Canon LTM 5cm lenses. The Luxon was a challenge, and it introduced me to a world of adapted lenses by Brian.

I find the Luxon quite useful when used at smaller apertures for standard looking images, while a wide open Luxon provides obvious effects of optical aberrations that allow me to try a different look.

Quite often we find lenses that are valuable these days because they are rare and not because they are good optically.

A rare Kia [read Luxon] may still be worth less than an everyday Bentley[read Summicron].
 
L39UK said:
You will find that the VL engraving is indicating a "Versuch- lens" (Trial lens) and this would have been from the first small batch of Quinons that Steinheil produced to test the market and pin point any problems before Quinons went into full production.These early lenses sometimes differed slightly to the later batches due to early shortcomings in design being corrected in the final design.The fact that this lens is also engraved "5cm" indicates that it is an early example since Steinheil presumably followed the other West German optical houses in changing to marking lenses in millimeters in the mid 1950's when most Quinons were in production.
Click to expand...

Hmmm, I am not sure about this. I have 2 35mm orthostigmats, an 85mm Culminar, and a 135mm Culminar, all in Leica screw mount. Each has the focal length in mm and VL on the beauty ring. (My 50mm Quinon does not have the VL.) By your reasoning these would be "late-model" trial lenses, which does not seem likely. Furthermore, as I understand it, versuch lenses were prototypes, thus made in very small quantities. If that is true, I do not see how I could have randomly acquired 4 of them over the years.

Could VL mean something different? Perhaps the 'L' refers to Leica, and the 'V' to something else?

Cheers,

David
 
Hacker said:
Does the Quinon use the same front lens cap as the Culminar 135mm f/4.5?
Click to expand...

Yes -- all Steinheil lenses in LTM used the same caps and filters (excepting, maybe, the last version of the Culminar 135mm, which has a redesigned front end).

The most common caps are the hard and soft plastic push-on caps, which have ~42mm internal diameters.

Steinheil also made a Summitar-style screw-in cap, with deep, tapered threads like the Summitar filters. Third party vendors, like Tiffen, also made these screw-in caps for the Summitar, which fit the Steinheil lenses.

Why Steinheil adopted the Summitar-sytle filter threads for their Leica lenses, long after Leica abandoned it, is a mystery to me.


Cheers,

David
 
dberger said:
Could VL mean something different? Perhaps the 'L' refers to Leica, and the 'V' to something else?
Click to expand...

My 5cm/2.8 Culminar for the Steinheil Casca II has VL on the lens bezel, as do the other lenses made for the Casca. Not sure what it means...
 
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