F2.8 150mm Xenotar

A lot of these Schneider Xenotars have come on ebay recently, and many of them are recovered from high speed ballistics cameras, so the lenses have been up close to explosions, blasts, flying debris, and very rough handling. The selling prices are low and the supply may be exceeding the demand. Despite this, the somewhat marked-up front element of this Xenotar, which is now mounted in a Compur 2 shutter, seems to not matter at all. And why should it, considering that big aperture?

The dented rim was a fair amount of work to straighten out, but now it takes a 77mm filter without too much trouble.

If you look at the specs you'd think it wouldn't cover 4X5, but it does, with some to spare. Here is an example on a reclaimed negative FP-100C45 negative, which shows little if any vignetting.  These are cool and relatively inexpensive lenses, a little shorter and less fast and glamorous as an Aero Ektar by the numbers, but probably faster in terms of light throughput, since there are apparently no thorium-stained elements in the rear group like those found in the Aero Ektar lenses.  And they are just small enough for handheld use too. Check out this amazing array of Xenotars.

You can see on mounted in the primary test camera here, except that one is mounted in a Copal No 3.