FallisPhoto
Veteran
yeah, no worries there, i know what your saying, but its no as straight forward as that though is it, unless you want pictures of newsprint. so many other variables come into play
the 75mm (and others) xenars on some just prior to pre-war camera and a few 80m post war xenar are suberb lenses, 5 element, but instead of the rear group having three like some other tessar type copies (to to get round patents), these had an extra element in front, with an air space...they were known by shnieder in the factory as the S-xenar, but they only wrote xenar on the front of the lens , even in their common literature. these are very sweet high quality lenses, great results.
my guess is they fell out of favour by the factory to make, because of cost, in comparison to the standard tessar type with 4 element xenar or schneiders 6 element xenon, why bother with the more expensive to make S-xenar, that they didnt market as such. it has the same type of glass index on the front as xenons that reduces flare but the trick is to get one that is clear and without marks....not unlike getting a xenon or leitz summar that are 60-70+ years on often showing signs of age and wear.
search all you want ..you possibly wont find this info around the net, so you will have to take my word for it (or not, i'm not offended-do as you like lol), but there it is. also it is understood that the s-xenar was so nice that kodak had it labled as xenon on some of thier early retina! i want to pull one apart before i state it as fact (and i will probably), but that is what is written in some stuff i have as fact, so it seems resonable to say
Well, I guess that explains why "Some Tessars are sharper than Xenars and some Xenars are sharper than Tessars."
BTW, I would never believe anything Kodak said. This wouldn't be the first time they have lied through their teeth. There are probably a dozen lenses labled Kodak that are not what they say they are, they lie about other people's lenses too, they have a well-deserved reputation for lying to their customers and then yanking the rug out from under them -- and their reps have lied to me personally on two different occasions. Anyone who knows how 620 film came to be, who remembers the disc cameras, who remembers the APS cameras, and on and on and on, and remembers their continual reassurances that they would continue making film for all that stuff, right up to a matter of hours before the stuff dissappeared off of the shelves, knows that a large part of Kodak's business "ethic" is based on lying to and cheating their customers.