Rollei 35 S-Xenar lens design?

[Darinwc]

I ahve a Rollei-35 with the S-Xenar lens.
Does anyone have a lens diagram?
Is this a true Xenar, more of a Tessar, or something different?

 

[KoNickon]

You'll have to enlighten me -- I thought a Xenar essentially was a Tessar design.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

There was a 5-element version of the Xenar, but by the time the Xenar was used on the Kodak Retina cameras it was back to 4 elements. The 5 element 5cm F2.8 Xenar was based on the Tessar, but split the front element into two elements of lesser power in an air-spaced group. Mine is from the 1940s. Sometimes it was called a Xenar Special, other times was just marked "Xenar". I found the 5 elements when cleaning mine.

 

[ddutchison2]

Doh! I missed the "S" part of your Xenar post! S-Xenars are the 5 element version of their classic 4 element Xenar

It was Schneider's "Tessar", but the name of that formula was a trademark of Zeiss, so they had to call it something else. The Tessar formula was ubiquitous and was used by every lens maker in the world up until the late 70's, so some are better than others - Xenars, Elmars, and the Genuine Zeiss Tessars are amoung the very best of the breed.

Rollei used both Tessars and Xenars almost interchangeably depending on availability and price, and they are indistinguishable from each other.

 

[titrisol]

Something like:
This was the Karat-Xenar also known as Super-Xenar from the early 50s.

Agfa Karat 12 / 2.8 cameras

Agfa Karat, camera information, photographs, collection

www.cjs-classic-cameras.co.uk

Image doesn't come in the forum but scroll 3/4 of thw way and there is a diagram http://www.cjs-classic-cameras.co.uk/karat/super-xenar_s.png

 

[Sonnar Brian]

I have that lens- hacked into Leica mount.

 

[titrisol]

Amazing! I have that lens in a Agfa Karat 12!
Just finished hacking (3d printing) cartridges for film and loaded it to take the 1st pics after CLA

 

[Darinwc]

You'll have to enlighten me -- I thought a Xenar essentially was a Tessar design.

The regular Xenar was similar to the Tessar but reversed.
These was also a 5 element Xenar.

 

[KoNickon]

The regular Xenar was similar to the Tessar but reversed.
These was also a 5 element Xenar.

Reversed? Can you explain?