“Kiptar lenses? Yeah,we threw all of them into the dumpster” was a response I got some time ago, when I asked about these lenses. Yeah, of course… I get it. They are very old… ancient in the scope of cine projection history and some show heat damage (which is quite complicated to repair) or might be broken in one way or another. But just throwing them away by the dozens? It’s yet another tragedy, for any manual lens experimenter, who knows a thing or two about projection lenses. And while the Kiptar name has been used for simple Petzval lenses initially, several iterations and improved designs were sold under that banner as well, so it might be worth it to check, before you throw something away as obsolete.
If you’re not familiar with the name ISCO, maker of the Kiptar lenses, it was a subsidiary of Schneider Kreuznach, one of the most important German manufacturers. I’m planning to go into more detail when it comes to the history of both companies in The Xenon Story, but decided to include my attempt at a concise timeline of Schneider and ISCO here as well:
In addition I would also invite you to check out The Isco Story by Mark, which – while not finished completely – already features a nice overview and some great insights into the projection lenses of the successful Schneider Kreuznach subsidiary.
Supposedly the story of the Kiptar started in 1946. I don’t know if there is any official explanation for the name, but because I couldn’t find anything definitive, I think it likely was inspired by the Zeiss cine projection lenses Kipronar, which Zeiss made from 1932 on. It’s safe to assume that name was already well known among projectionists. In his book Carl Zeiss, Das Auge unserer Kamera, Author Hartmut Thiele hints at the first part of Kipronar standing for Kino-Projektion (Cine projection in German)and that does make a lot of sense. I think it’s possible ISCO wanted a name that was reminiscent of the already established lenses or also showed the same association to the application it was designed for. There are numerous similar examples from other manufacturers, like the Kinon (Meyer Optik), Kinostar (Ernemann), Neokino (Emil Busch) or variations in other languages like Cinestar (Benoist Berthiot), Cinor (SOM Berthiot), Cinar (Officine Calileo), Cinelux (Kollmorgen), Cinephor (Bausch & Lomb) etc.
The -tar suffix had also been established at that point by lenses like Protar, Ektar, Biotar and Schneider’s own famous Xenotar. Here are some interesting theories on etymology of -tar and -ar in photography.
While it may look like another one of those stories where Schneider, or in this case their subsidiary ISCO, took a little bit too much inspiration from an external source (you’ll find other examples in The Xenon Story, once it’s finished), it’s impossible to claim that they didn’t make good use of that name or didn’t put in enough of their own work. ISCO managed to establish the Kiptar name all around the world and – for a short period of time – even as a poster child of progress and symbol of fierce but fruitful competition with brands around the world.
Apart from Kiptar and Super-Kiptar ISCO used a couple of similarly sounding names, which suggest that they had some relation to the former. There’s the Kiptaron, 16-mm and the Kiptagon, 8-mm cine projection lenses, the T-Kiptagon, (somewhat surprisingly) for 70 mm, a Kiptanar (also for 16 mm) and lastly the Kiptron, for 35 (perhaps 70) mm format. I’ve not been able to find specific data on lens construction on several of these, so it’s possible that only a couple of them really have a deep connection to the Kiptar-named lenses. There are also a couple of lenses with completely different names, which get a mention here, like the Duotar or Projar family. I feel like all of these lenses belong together for one reason or another, but if you have any information or data completely contradicting that assumption, please let me know. It’s certainly not like there’s too much specific data or comprehensive information about ISCO out there, particularly when it comes to their older projection lenses.
One excellent resource, which should be mentioned however is the article ISCO Göttingen / Schneider Göttingen-Objektive für die Exakta by Photo but More by Horst Neuhaus. It gives some great insights into the company and its offerings in terms of taking lenses. Don’t put too much faith into the Lens Vademecum, when it comes to ISCO. While mostly well-researched and a wonderful resource overall (and in many cases the only one available at all), it’s far from accurate on the company and its lenses. It even lists the Kipronar as part of ISCOs lineup, while that is clearly a Zeiss product and it seems to suggest a production date of 1949 for the Super-Kiptar, despite that likely being the origin year of the projector it was found on (which doesn’t mean anything at all, because these lenses were interchangable) Not a grave error, mind you but slightly misleading.
I’ve been interested in the Super-Kiptar line of lenses for a while, particularly after I got my first sample of the faster f/1.6 lenses. They are a nice in-between of modern rendering and what’s often called a vintage look. Later I got a couple of the original Kiptar lenses as part of a lens lot and was pleasantly surprised when I tried them. I enjoyed their moderately swirly look + decent sharpness and their simple, yet solid construction made them endure significant use over the decades quite well.
While looking for the origin of the Goerz Kromar, a lens from Austria, I’m planning to write about in The Austria Chronicles (tba), I stumbled upon a large group of lenses in absolutely awful condition. Among those were several Super-Kiptar lenses and one labeled Schneider-Kiptar, but obviously made by ISCO (Optische Werke Göttingen). And so, one of the most intense deep-dives so far on my journey of adapting old lenses, started with this uncommon lens.
The Kiptars | In Petzval’s big footsteps
According to Hartmut Thiele and his book Die Deutsche Photoindustrie – Wer war Wer Kiptar lenses were produced from 1946 on. Kiptars are reported to be regular Petzval designs with 4 elements in 3 groups.
They didn’t offer anything exceptional when it comes to speed but they must have been reasonably good in terms of sharpness and correction, very reliable and (because of the significant gap between the rear lens elements) somewhat unlikely to have been affected by heat damage. While a couple of lenses from competitors (Zeiss/Askina/Angenieux/Projection Optics etc.) used a second cemented doublet, allowing for slightly faster designs, ISCO seems to have kept their Kiptar line in a classic Petzval fashion. It’s possible that this has helped them keep that line of lenses around for such a long time, because it’s important to remember that light sources were developing at a significant pace as well, and particularly the rear part of lenses could have been affected by stronger illumination technology, if they used cemented groups.
The shorter focal lengths of the Kiptar lens family have an aperture of f/2, but longer ones vary from f/2.6 to f/3.6. They were, however, available up to 220 mm and particularly the longer focal length lenses were kept as part of the overall ISCO lens lineup for a very long time after 6 element projection lenses were the new standard.
The Kiptar name has also been used for 8 and 16 mm projection lenses, but because they don’t seem to be as frequent it’s hard to say if they have been produced in high numbers (and in more focal lengths) at all or replaced by lenses with different names, like Kiptaron, Kiptagon etc. over time.
The rendering of the Kiptar lenses is pretty much like you would expect from a Petzval design: A small area with decent sharpness and detail in the center and degrading image quality towards the edges. Of course, the size of the central area with the best image quality varies, depending on the focal length. These lenses tend to swirl visibly, so depending on the intented look this can be great or distracting. They’re not among the most intense swirl-lenses out there though, apart from a handful of exceptions.
Even though a majority of these lenses has likely been dumped already, due to their age and obsoleteness in their cine-projection environments, they’re still readily available (at least if you don’t need one very particular focal length) and usually quite cheap. So they can be a nice entry point into Petzval lens photography, which is still as popular as ever, particularly for portraits. If you’re interested in reading about the weird genius Jozef Petzval, who probably was one of the most important and influential figures in the history of photography, I’d recommend checking out Roger Cicala’s excellent article Lens Wars: Episode V – Petzval Strikes Back.
| 8 mm / 9.5 mm & 16 mm format |
Somewhat confusingly (but not totally unheard of), ISCO used the Kiptar name for several different formats. This is a collection of ISCO Kiptar labeled lenses from different years or even decades which may have been produced for several smaller formats. There could be more out there.
While the optics may be identical or very similar in several cases, lenses labeled JSCO, Schneider-Kiptar or Serie S can be found in the following chapter, in order to create a somewhat consistent categorization. There may be some overlap however.
20/1.6(?) ISCO Göttingen Kiptar
35/1.6 ISCO Göttingen Kiptar
It seems like this lens was used on a Ditmar dual projector made for 9.5 and 16 mm format. MFLenses forum user arri has adapted such a lens and even added a variable aperture, making it a very interesting lens for use on a M4/3 camera. He also reported that this lens doesn’t use the regular 4-3 Petzval design shown above, but rather a 4-2 variant, similar to the Duotar line. While one could suspect that to be a case of relabeling, the diverging aperture value makes me think they could be different lenses. It could be identical with the Kiptar Serie S 35/1.6, at least in terms of optical design.
50/1.6 ISCO Göttingen Kiptar
Gudrun Besler, artist, experimental photographer and experienced collector of unusual cine- and projection lenses has worked with two different samples (serial numbers 238888 and 238861, both likely from 1954) of this lens and shared a number of wonderful shots to show the unique qualities of this lens.
The main difference to the JSCO, Schneider-Kiptar and Serie S version of this lens, may be the missing red C (Coating). I’m not sure why ISCO added it on some earlier and also some later lenses… perhaps it was only engraved for a particular kind of coating or only mentioned when a lens/series got it for the first time.
50/1.7 ISCO Göttingen Kiptar C (No.: 133646)
65/2 ISCO Göttingen Kiptar
70/1.8 ISCO Göttingen Kiptar C (No.: 346634)
75/1.8 ISCO Göttingen Kiptar C (No.: 332694)
90/2 ISCO Göttingen Kiptar
101/2.3 ISCO – Kiptar
I haven’t been able to verify any of this, but my suspicion is, that this is a 16 mm projection lens. User blue bubble on flickr has taken some nice shots with this one and shared an image of the lens which looks similar to some of the other silver 16 mm Kiptars I’ve seen. You can take a look at the album here.
| 35 mm format |
It’s interesting to note that the regular range of Kiptar lenses only started at a focal length of 80 mm. It seems to suggest that ISCO already had the Super-Kiptar in mind at the time the Kiptar was released. It’s even possible that they were released very close to each other, because the gap between the highest serial number of the Optische Werke Göttingen era (130864) + the lowest regular ISCO Göttingen Kiptar I’ve ever seen (115483), which we can both date to around 1952, and the lowest documented Super-Kiptar lens (211687), which has a suggested date of 1953, is extremely small.
Of course, the Xenon (6-4 or 6-5 Double-Gauss) Super-Kiptar series lenses were ideal for shorter focal lengths. ISCO didn’t seem to bother creating any Ernostar/Sonnar variants for 35 mm projection purposes, but they still managed to offer high-quality lenses for the whole common range needed.
In an issue of International Projectionist from 1954, an article offered an interesting overview and some recommendations in regard to types of lenses and focal lengths. Whether that sentiment was shared by most projectionists is of course unkown, but it is reflected in the number of lenses, which were offered and advertised.
The regular Kiptar lenses were not among the fastest Petzval-type projection lenses, compared to the Zeiss Kipronar (f/1.9), Angenieux AX (f1.4/1.7), the Optical Curz-Proyectar (f/1.8), the Askania Askinar (f/1.9) and some others, but judging by the state many of these lenses are in on the used marked, it seems like they were well built and solid performers overall.
80/2 ISCO Göttingen Kiptar
85/2 ISCO Göttingen Kiptar
90/2 ISCO Göttingen Kiptar
As a close-up shooter this one is certainly one of my favorite Kiptar lenses. While the swirly look it produces can be a bit distracting and too busy at distance it seems very nicely balanced for closer subjects. The sharp in focus area is indeed quite small, but the image circle in terms of illumination isn’t and so combined with a tilt adapter or bellows, it even offers some nice options for shots at distance.
The following shots are cross-view stereo images – here’s a tutorial on how to view them.
95/2 ISCO Göttingen Kiptar
Due to my preferences and limited time, I only managed to take a couple of close-up shots with this one before selling it. It’s very similar to its ability to produce nice looking images close-up, if you can live with a limited sharp area of focus. For possible differences, compared to the 90 mm variant mentioned above, I’ll have to refer you (once again) to flickr user nefotografas, who has taken a number of shots at different distances, shown in a dedicated album here. I think it’s a similar case: If you manage to find the right composition with a central subject, it can work nicely, otherwise it’s likely best suited for close-up work.
100/2 ISCO Göttingen Kiptar C
This lens, seen on ebay, has one of the lower serial numbers of the ISCO Göttingen labeled Kiptar lenses I’ve seen (134319). Because of that it’s not surprising, that it also has an inscription highlighting the coating with a red C, which is very unusual for the series. The lens also has a very weird metallic mechanism/clamp inside clearly visible in the seller’s pictures. It doesn’t look like a fixed aperture disk and I’m still stumped by what that might be about.
My best guess, is that it may have been some holder for a filter to be used inside for specific type of projection in a lab or something like that. If you have any clue about that, please reach out and let me know.
100/2 ISCO Göttingen Kiptar
While not as uncommon as the unusual version above it, I also found something interesting regarding the regular version of this focal length: The highest serial number, I’ve ever seen given to a Kiptar lens (9129380). You can find more below under The enigma of ISCO serial numbers at the end of this article.
Gudrun Besler has shot with a lower serial number variant of this lens and the beautiful and elegant captures of flowers she shared with us, reconfirm, that these simple Kiptar lenses are not as obsolete as taking lenses as they are for projection purposes.
The following shots are cross-view stereo images – here’s a tutorial on how to view them.
100/2.1 ISCO Göttingen Kiptar
Yet another unique thing about the 100 mm focal length Kiptar: it also existed in a version with a speed of 2.1 apparently. The reason or application is unknown however. Could be an earlier version, but I doubt it. Likely just adjusted for a different purpose or particular projector.
105/2 ISCO Göttingen Kiptar
Because I’ve got some exceptional lenses in the range of 105 mm, I was honestly expecting to be underwhelmed with this lens. I’m happy to say, that there wasn’t any basis for that though because it’s very well rounded and worked fine for almost anything I used it for.
It certainly feels like a great entry lens into Petzval-based designs, if you don’t want to go for the crazy swirly, distorted or super-fast territorry. These lenses are very common by the way, but often sold as part of lens lots or coupled arrangements with Anamorphic lenses. So it’s certainly still possible to get real bargains here, if you know what to look for.
The following shot is a cross-view stereo image – here’s a tutorial on how to view it.
110/2 ISCO Göttingen Kiptar
115/2.1 ISCO Göttingen Kiptar
120/2.2 ISCO Göttingen Kiptar
Gudrun Besler shared some great shots made with this one. I love how well she managed to give some depth to the blossoms, which shows what an often overlooked lens series is capable of when put in the right hands:
125/2.2 ISCO Göttingen Kiptar
Just when I had thought to have a somewhat consistent theory on the Kiptar serial numbers, this lens comes along… I’ve seen several of these lenses, even owned one at some point, but another one I’ve spotted online, with a serial number of 115483 and regular ISCO Göttingen Kiptar (no red C) labeling threw a wrench into my theory. So this lens could be one of two things: 1.) a lens from before 1945 in the old serial number system or 2.) a lens from 1952 in the new serial number system of taking lenses.
I’ve taken some shots with a later lens in this focal length, but because I only got to shoot it for a very limited time (and am generally not very experienced with that focal length), they might not give you a very meaningful impression.
130/2.3 ISCO Göttingen Kiptar
135/2.4 ISCO Göttingen Kiptar
140/2.5 ISCO Göttingen Kiptar
The images shot with this lens which Gudrun Besler provided, are really nice looking and manage to evoke a great atmosphere of the place (a cemetery) they were taken at. I like the colors and the (compared to a modern tack-sharp taking lens) quite different look is a great fit for it in my eyes.
145/2.5 ISCO Göttingen Kiptar
150/2.6 ISCO Göttingen Kiptar
155/2.7 ISCO Göttingen Kiptar
I got this lens recently and while I’m not sure it’s the best sample to compare due to the state it’s in, it is the closest I own in terms of focal length to two different lenses I find interesting to compare: The Zeiss Kipronar 140/1.9 and the Kershaw Gaumont-Kalee Series-H 140/2.2. Even in the corresponding focal length of 140 mm, the Kiptar series is significantly slower at f/2.5. However the Kiptar is considerably lighter and thus easier to handle and due to its construction (and large rear element) also significantly more versatile for tilt/shift use than the Kalee Series
So here’s a comparison between the the Kiptar 155/2.7 and the Gaumont-Kalee Series H 140/2.2:
The Kalee Series H might be slightly sharper and faster but overall the image quality and rendering look very similar with the main difference being the significantly flatter FOV of the Kiptar. In terms of cine-projection I would absolutely understand, if many projectionsts at the time preferred the Kiptar, given the lack of field curvature and its significantly lower weight, but as a taking lens the Kalee certainly seems more unique.
Here’s another comparison, this time with the Zeiss Kipronar 14 cm, which is even faster at f/1.9
The difference in speed is obvious. The amount of added optical flaws in the look of the (significantly older) Kipronar model as well. Newer Kipronars likely do better in this regard.
Finally one more comparison, this time with a taking lens, the Pentacon 135/2.8 (aka Meyer Optik Orestor):
The Pentacon shows more detail but of course significantly less blur than the Kiptar. It’s slightly better corrected in the in-focus area, but that is reversed in the out-of-focus highlights. What’s more important is very subjective. In terms of versatility a regular taking lens like the Pentacon is always going to be superior to a projection lens though.
But regardless of technical performance, here are some sample shots taken with the Kiptar 155/2.7:
160/2.8 ISCO Göttingen Kiptar
165/2.8 ISCO Göttingen Kiptar
170/2.9 ISCO Göttingen Kiptar
Usually I struggle with focal lengths like this. Because it’s so lightweight and easy to handle, shooting with the Kiptar 170/2.9 was more fun than expected and resulted in nicer looking shots than I had anticipated. Of course it’s not a superfast lens, but it’s a well-balanced combination for a variety of shots.
Because I also got a Neokino in a focal length of 160 mm recently, I decided to compare those. Here are the results:
Safe to say that these lenses are very comparable. I’d even go so far as to say that I likely wouldn’t be able to distinguish shots made with them, if the slight difference in focal length was eliminated (like I’ve tried in the sample). When you look at the images at 100% magnification, the Kiptar does look a little bit more detailed because it’s slightly better corrected, but it’s minor enough to attribute it to sample variation.
The following shot is a cross-view stereo image – here’s a tutorial on how to view it.
175/2.9 ISCO Göttingen Kiptar
180/3.1 ISCO Göttingen Kiptar
185/3.1 ISCO Göttingen Kiptar
190/3.1 ISCO Göttingen Kiptar
195/3.1 ISCO Göttingen Kiptar
200/3.3 ISCO Göttingen Kiptar
205/3.3 ISCO Göttingen Kiptar
210/3.6 ISCO Göttingen Kiptar
215/3.6 ISCO Göttingen Kiptar
220/3.6 ISCO Göttingen Kiptar
The Zeiss Ikon Kinotechnik “K” (aka “Pick someone of your own Zeiss!”)
Now this is a weird one… while it clearly states “Zeiss – Ikon” on the barrel I’m almost completely sure that this is a relabled Kiptar lens. Here are a couple of reasons:
- it looks like a Kiptar
- it has the same specs as the corresponding Kiptar
- the “K” is also used as an abbreviation for Kiptar on some Philips labeled Kiptar lenses.
If you know why Zeiss Ikon decided to use a relabeled Kiptar lens, or if you have proof that this is a Zeiss-made lens and have some ideas why it does look identical to a Kiptar, please let me know. Given that they had the Kipronar, the Alinar, the Ernostar, the Kinostar and probably even more lenses as alternatives, I would love to have an explanation for why they decided to rebadge an ISCO lens.
The Schneider Projektar | Like Father, like son?
Looking at the history of Schneider Kreuznach, ISCOs parent company and their vast array of lenses, I’ve often wondered, why they didn’t make cine projection lenses early on after the rise of cinema. Turns out they did, and apparently one was called Projektar. It’s likely that it wasn’t produced in significant numbers though, at least they rarely appear on the used market.
If you have looked at one of my recent articles about Optical the only lens maker ever from Spain, you might have noticed the resemblance to the name of their projection lens offerings, which were spelled Proyectar, Projectar or Proiectar, depending on the date and manufacturing location.
The sample I’ve spotted first had a focal length of 10 cm, and likely a diameter of 62.5 mm. It looked closely related to the Kiptar and possibly even had the same speed of f/2. This made me think it could have been the original design the Kiptar was based on.
Hartmut Thiele’s excellent book ‘Deutsche Photooptik A-Z’ helped me in finding the corresponding patent and the underlying lens design is actually quite different from the Kiptar, so there doesn’t seem to be any connection between them.
The only patent for a projection lens which is somewhat similar in terms of design is one by french maker SOM Berthiot on the excellent site dioptrique.info an invaluable resource for anyone interested in lens designs and their underlying patents. The interesting thing about these two similar patents: while SOM Berthiot got their patent approved in 1938 which was filed earlier in 1938, Schneider Kreuznach only got their patent approved in 1940, but it was filed in 1935 already. It would be interesting to know if there was any direct connection/influence here.
The SOM Berhiot patent looks like a faster lens (a speed of f/1.5 for a 100 mm lens is mentioned), though it’s hard to say, because the Schneider Projektar doesn’t specify its speed. It likely isn’t any faster than f/2 though, judging by the diameter of the front lens, because we know that these lenses used a 62.5 mm barrel.
100/2(?) Schneider Kreuznach Projektar
The serial number 1892717 does suggest that it was made somewhere between 1943 and 1948, which of course were more than turbulent years in Germany, during and shortly after WWII.
130/2(?) Schneider Kreuznach Projektar
This lens was mentioned on the german board digicamclub.de. It was labeled 13 cm, so likely is from the era before or during WWII. Unfortunately the images on the forum entry don’t work any longer, but it likely looks very similar to the 10 cm version shown above.
The Optische Werke Göttingen, JSCO, Schneider-Kiptar and Kiptar Serie lenses | It’s not just a phase, mom…
While the Super-Kiptar series might offer superior image quality across the frame and a more modern rendering, the Serie lenses are the most interesting to me personally. Because they seem to represent some kind of in-between… a phase where ISCO was yet undecided between keeping the simple Petzval formula and improving it further or opting for a variant of the more complicated 6/4 Opic/Xenon design, which might bring different challenges with it.
While it seems ISCO chose the latter in the end, it’s great to see in hindsight that they also made some interesting alternatives, which might be equally interesting and provide even more unique opportunities for experimental photographers nowadays.
There’s barely any documentation on the lenses labeled Kiptar Serie, but I managed to find a mention of a Schneider Kiptar S on the excellent filmvorfuehrer.de forum (a german board for cine projection), where an ad from the magazine Filmecho/Filmwoche was quoted as:
“Super Kiptar S für die Projektion auf tiefgekrümmten Bildwänden”.
(Super Kiptar S for the projection onto deeply curved screens)
Unfortunately, there was no mention of the focal length in question, so it’s not clear if this does apply to the 50 mm Kiptar S, which is the only one I’ve seen. There is however a mention of Serie S on kameramuseum.de (another great site) on the Pathé GEM, Pathex 16 mm projector:
“Die deutsche 9,5-mm-Version verwendete das deutsche Objektiv Kiptar Serie S 1:1,6/35 mm, die vorliegende 16-mm-Museumsversion ein Kiptar Serie S mit einer Lichtstärke 1:1,6 und 50 mm Brennweite. Während die späteren Kiptar und Ultra Kiptar mit dem Namen Isco-Göttingen beschriftet wurden, trägt die S-Serie den Namen ‚Schneider‘, der Muttergesellschaft von Isco. Die Schneider Kiptar-S-Serie ist heute selten anzutreffen.”
(The german 9.5 mm version used the german-made lens Kiptar Serie S 1:1,6/35, the 16 mm version in posession of the museum uses a Kiptar Serie S, with an aperture of 1:1,6 and 50 mm focal length. While the later Kiptar and Ultra Kiptar* lenses were engraved Isco-Göttingen, the Serie S ones had its parent company Schneider written on them. The Schneider Kiptar Serie S lens is quite rare nowadays.)
* I’m pretty sure they meant Super-Kiptar
If the Kiptar Serie S lenses were indeed made for curved screen projection, they will likely produce a lot of field curvature intentionally to wrap the image around the screen. Because I’ve not used one myself, I’m not sure to what extent that’s the case, but I’m convinced it’s a great lens for close-up experiments. If you want to see some images talented people have taken with it, I recommend checking out the outstanding experimental photography work of aort-besler, german-based photographer and artist, who has used this lens to great effect, as well as the interesting blog-entries by deramateurphotograph, who used that lens as well occasionally.
What I was fascinated by the most though, are the Kiptar Serie III, IV and V lenses. There’s no mention of them in any book I’ve found so far, and while it’s probably safe to assume that there must have been Kiptar Serie I and II lenses as well (unless the regular Kiptars were seen as Serie I by ISCO) I haven’t been able to find any trace of them.
As far as dates are concerned it’s likely that they have been designed and manufactured after the war – between 1946 and 1953 – because they all show the characteristic Optische Werke Göttingen labeling and some are called Schneider-Kiptar, because of the ban on the ISCO brand by the allied forces.
Because of their exceptional rarity it seems reasonable to assume that they never went into full-scale production, but they do have regular serial numbers and none of the couple of lenses I’ve seen images of, show any indicators of being prototypes. So, there must have been small production runs at least before they were superseded by the Super-Kiptar range, which surely offered better corner performance at the same or similar speeds.
The idea of superfast Petzval-based designs is of course much older and the Neokino by Emil Busch, the Kinon (Superior) by Meyer Optik Görlitz as well as the Zeiss Kipronar series had been around since the 1920s or 1930s in speeds up to f/1.5. It’s interesting regardless, that ISCO gave the idea a try as well, before the decision was made in favor of the double-gauss based Super-Kiptars.
The Serie (series) doesn’t seem to be in ascending order, when it comes to serial numbers, but given the lack of samples it doesn’t say much and could just be a coincidence. There’s also quite a bit of variety in terms of speed. The Serie III lens is f/2, the two Serie IV samples are f/1.6 and f/1.7, and the Serie V lens is f/1.7 as well. If we count the 16 mm lenses of the Optische Werke Göttingen as well, they do vary from f/1.6 to f/1.9 and all seem quite unique in terms of design, coatings etc. There’s also no clear correlation between the number and focal length, because there’s a Serie III and Serie IV lens with 120 mm for example.
From my research on US projection lenses, I’ve learned that many manufacturers from there used Series I and II for what they call Quarter-Size (1.75 inch diameter) and Half-Size (2.5 inch diameter) lenses. At least in the case of Projection Optics the Series III designation was used for their main lenses (in the US usually 70.6 mm as far as I know). The equivalent in Europe was probably a 62.5 mm diameter, and it does look like ISCO used that for their Serie III lenses as well. There could be a correlation, but it could also be a coincidence. If it was used to differentiate diameters, the Kiptar Serie III was the 62.5 mm diameter lens, the Serie IV could have been the 82.5 mm, and the Serie V a stepped version with two diameters 62.5/82.5 mm. The Series I and II (no mention) could have been used for 52.5 mm or stepped 52.5/62.5 mm diameter versions. And finally the Series S a 32.5/42.5 mm model.
It really must have been a weirdly chaotic time after the war, particularly in companies like ISCO, which were partly destroyed, partly disassembled by the occupying forces and yet eager to get things working again and keeping up with the growing competition worldwide. No wonder there wasn’t enough time to document everything properly.
| 8 mm / 9.5 mm & 16 mm format |
20/1.6 Schneider Kiptar (Serie S)
I doubt this lens offers a large enough image circle for any modern camera. It could be big enough for M4/3 but given that there are plenty of faster alternatives in the focal length range within the vast c-mount range of TV- and industrial lenses, I don’t think this one is very interesting. It is not called ‘Serie S’ in any of the ads, but given that it is named Schneider-Kiptar we can assume that it was from the same era.
In this ad, which also references the same Schneider lens, you got to appreciate a weirdly complex constellation of companies and brands, which seems to have been somewhat typical at the time: Pullin Optical Co. (UK) advertising a projector by Nizo (Niezoldi & Krämer, Germany) with a lens called Schneider-Kiptar (but made by ISCO).
35/1.6 Schneider Kiptar Serie S (No.: )
Thankfully this lens is referenced and even accompanied by a small test on a Lumix camera on the site hans-egede.org. I love how this tiny lens looks and it does seem to render beautifully. Because I had some great experiences with the Agfa Ocellar 3.5 cm f/1.6 with identical specs, I wonder how this lens would do with some modification of the seemingly built-in lens hood. Then again – with it being made for a small format such as 9.5 mm – it’s quite likely that the image circle will be too small, even for APS-C.
50/1.6 Schneider Kiptar Serie S (No.: 112193, 112204)
Once again Gudrun Besler shared some shots of the two lenses (109170 & 112204) as well:
Given the same specs and look I would suspect that this lens is identical to the JSCO – Göttingen Kiptar C, I’ve mentioned below though it’s hard to say, without an opportunity to compare them directly. Because of the ‘S’ designation it could show different geometric distortion in order to provide better projection on curved screens.
It looks like there’s a 16 mm and also a 9.5 mm version (Serial number 112193) of this lens. Kurt Tauber mentions and shows the latter on his site kameramuseum.de.
Here it is on the interesting looking Pathex projector:
50/1.6 Optische Werke Göttingen Kiptar Serie-S C
Gudrun Besler has used several of these 50 lenses with identical or at least comparable specs, but different inscriptions and serial numbers. Here’s an ISCO Göttingen labeled Series S lens for example, with the serial number 112214:
And once more some wonderful shots the artist shared:
On the interesting site hand-egede.org (by an unnamed author) there’s some information on this lens and several others, including the projectors they were used on. This lens seems to have been used on a Lytax 16mm sound film projector. There’s also a section called ‘Portrait of a projection lens’ (auto-translated), which features some very unique and barely documented projection lenses for smaller formats and even talks about their optical properties when adapted to a modern camera – great stuff!
50/1.6 JSCO – Göttingen Kiptar C
This lens may be among the craziest lenses in terms of swirly rendering, that I’ve ever seen. It doesn’t cover a full frame sensor, particularly at distance, but for close-up experiments, it is as fun as it gets. I’d call it comparable to the Meyer Kinon Superior 5 cm f/1.6 in some ways, which is often sold for very high prices these days. So if you happen to find one of those Kiptar C lenses, give it a try.
It seems like this lens might have been manufactured right around the time, when ISCO was allowed to use its name again, after the occupying powers had prohibited it for several years. With a serial number of 132701 it is was probably created almost immediately after the last lenses engraved ‘Optische Werke Göttingen’. Perhaps it was still undecided if JSCO or ISCO would be used… who knows. Some mentions online reference this and similar lenses as ‘Series C’ but I don’t think any lens is labeled like that and am fully convinced the C stands for coating, which was applied regularly from this point on and had huge impacts on optical developments.
Here are a couple of comparisons with other 50 mm projection lenses I find interesting. First up is the Meyer Kinon Superior 50/1.8:
Apart from the slightly lower contrast, but (name-appropriate) superior detail of the Kinon Superior, it’s interesting to note how similar these lenses render. The Kiptar is of course faster, so it would be great to see it in comparison to the f/1.6 version of the Kinon, but these are getting increasingly rare these days. The JSCO Kiptar is a nice alternative though, if you stumble upon it.
Next up is a comparison with the Agfa Ocellar 50/~1.8:
The Agfa lens is cleary better in terms of detail and it does provide a more nuanced rendering overall (less swirl, less field curvature and better illumination across the whole field-of-view due to its bigger image circle). For people who love to experiment with crazy rendering, the JSCO-Kiptar seems like a more interesting lens though.
Last in line is the Optical Proiectar 50/1.6, which is part of The Optical Story:
The difference is quite drastic with the Proiectar showing a significantly smoother look. It feels like it is faster than the JSCO-Kiptar. For some people that might be a benefit, others might call that bland.
Though not among the very best of its kind in terms of raw image quality, the JSCO Kiptar 50/1.6 managed to become one of my favorite lenses from the whole Kiptar family. And a lot of that has to do with its strong character and ability to create unique looking and (in my eyes) interesting images. Here are some samples:
70/1.9 Optische Werke Göttingen Kiptar C (No.: 130864)
While not quite as crazy as the 50/1.6 lenses and of course also not as fast, this one is a nice performer as well, when adapted. Coverage is – as expected for a 16 mm lens of that focal length – not great but surprisingly okay on full frame. It still shows visible vignetting at distance and won’t provide any detail close to the corners.
Rendering varies a lot, depending on the distance and kind of background, from very smooth to quite busy, but the lens does provide images with its own unique stamp, which I appreciate. The moderate swirl and slight vignetting often turn into a feature with this one.
75/1.9 Optische Werke Göttingen G.mb.H. Kiptar C (No.: 126759)
| 35 mm format |
85/1.6 Optische Werke Göttingen G.m.b.H Kiptar C
According to Hans-Martin Brandt and his book ‘Das Photoobjektiv’ this could be a 16 mm lens. While that’s not completely out of the question, I’m not fully convinced of that though. This lens covers the full frame sensor and while it isn’t sharp near the edges of the frame, that’s nothing unusual for such a fast Petzval design. With a rear diameter of 52.5 mm it doesn’t seem to be suited to the usual 16 mm projector holders. Because this is an early lens (likely from somewhere between 1945 and 1951) to use ISCO’s new coating technology, it got a red C engraved, as many lenses did as well in the following years. With a serial number of 118557 it might have been one of the first lenses.
It’s interesting to compare this lens to (a likely contemporary) one by Angenieux, the AX Type 75 90-95/1.7. This lens uses a 4 elements in 2 groups Petzval derivative, while the Kiptar 85/1.6 seems to consists of 4 elements in 3 groups, which might have been influenced by the availability of the aforementioned improved coating.
In terms of rendering, this lens shows some similar optical flaws, comparable to the Kiptar Serie V lens I’ve tried, however less pronounced, and perhaps thanks to its (red C) coating significantly less distracting glow. Overall the look is very smooth and pleasant and the 85 mm focal length certainly within my favorite range. The more I shot with this lens, the more I started to appreciate the unique possibilities it offers, I’d dare to say even a little bit of magic. Because the way this lens renders helps creating images which – at least to my perception – feel somewhat alive and active.
An interesting lens to compare this with is the Angenieux AX Type 75 90-95/1.6 because it’s also a Petzval-based design, single coated and with a similar speed. Even though I don’t have nearly enough experience with either lens to say for sure, I’m inclined to believe that the Angenieux lens doesn’t show the same amount of optical flaws (particularly in the out of focus highlights) of the Kiptar C 85/1.6.
In a direct comparison however it quickly gets apparent, that the Angenieux lens shows an enormous amount of field curvature, while the Optische Werke Göttingen one is more flat field. This results in surprisingly clear differences and enables different interesting options for unique compositions with both lenses.
Take a look at the comparisons to gain a better understanding:
The Angenieux lens with its very strong field curvature is unrivaled in terms of subject isolation, particularly in the center and from a slightly elevated point of view and also superior when it comes to smooth background rendering/the amount of blur. The Kiptar C however does allow for more blur in the foreground (take a look at the red pearl on the right side), and a more textured background for those who prefer that kind of look.
Both lenses can produce very nice looking images in terms of rendering though, if you know about their strengths and weaknesses and are nice samples of the incredible potential within Petzval’s ingenious design, in my opinion similarly interesting to the excellent Emil Busch Neokino series.
Here are some samples to illustrate what this lens is capable of:
The following shots are cross-view stereo images – here’s a tutorial on how to view them.
110/2 Optische Werke Göttingen Schneider Kiptar Serie III
Like once before (in the article on Optical) flickr user nefoto from Lithuania came to the rescue by sharing some shots of and taken with this lens on his great profile. This clearly is among the earliest lenses of its kind (Serial: 107612) and doesn’t have the red C coating mark. While being somewhat low contrast, and not very sharp its rendering is nice enough for nefotografas to decide to keep the lens and use it on a number of occasions with very convincing results as you can see here.
115/1.7 Schneider Kiptar Serie IV
This lens was mentioned (unfortunately without any detailed image of the lens) to have been used on an Ernemann VIIB projector from the 1930s, which is displayed on the great site cinematheque.fr with lots of details.
The serial number of this lens is 120372 and it’s a coated optic as well.
120/2.2 Optische Werke Göttingen Kiptar C Serie III
The interesting thing about this lens, which appeared quite some time after I found the first Serie III lens, is that it confirms this family of lenses is an actual series and not just a prototype. This is particularly obvious because the change of serial number between the two Serie III lenses (around 11500) but also because this one – with the serial 119261 – features a promined red C for coating. It also matches what was later known as the Kiptar series in the focal length/speed combination.
120/1.6 Optische Werke Göttingen Kiptar C Serie IV
This is quite an impressive lens in terms of specs. I can’t think of many Petzval lenses which are as long and fast as this one. Emil Busch made a similar Neokino 125/1.6, Angenieux had their AX Type 86 115-120/1.7 and Optical (supposedly) a Proiectar 130-135/1.6. There might have been a couple more, but they’re all quite rare and usually expensive nowadays.
This one does feature the red C coating indicator and is a later sample of the Serie-range with its serial number 126456.
Thankfully Helge, from the german digicamclub message board, shared some shots of the lens, as well as taken with it, and particularly the portraits on medium format are outstandingly impressive. I invite you to take a look here.
Here are some of his thoughts on the lens:
It never gets truly sharp, and considering the extreme light intensity, the bokeh isn’t outstanding either, especially due to the distracting color fringing on the background highlights. But there’s a reason why the Kiptar hasn’t disappeared from my camera shelf long ago: It illuminates 6×6 medium format without vignetting, and when I attach it (also improvised) to my analog Bronica EC-TL, the results are something special that you can’t easily achieve with any other lens. The depth of field is, of course, minimal—theoretically somewhere in the region of a 0.8/60 on a 35mm film.
(translated from German)
And these shots, in particular the mentioned medium format portraits look excellent indeed:
130/1.7 Optische Werke Göttingen Schneider Kiptar Serie V
As mentioned at the start of this write-up, it once more was a single lens, which started my journey into a particular topic. Until I held this lens in my hands, I had never seen a single copy of an ISCO lens of the Kiptar Serie range and at 130 mm and a speed of f/1.7, featuring a Petzval design, this lens certainly was quite unique among my humble collection of projection lenses.
While I managed to find at least an image or reference for another sample of both the Kiptar Serie III and IV online, I haven’t been able to locate another Serie V lens anywhere.
As you can see from the low serial number (105836) this lens might be among the oldest of all the Serie lenses. It seems to be uncoated or at least doesn’t feature any newly developed coating, indicated by the red C on other lenses of its kind.
Because of that (and perhaps in part due to its speed) it is a low-contrast lens and not sharp at all, with some very strong glow at the edges of whatever is somewhat in focus. It’s really unfortunate and doesn’t work well in most situations. I actually found similar defects in other superfast longer Petzval-based lenses I’ve tried from Meyer Optik or San Giorgio de Sestri, so it seems quite a common occurrence and might indeed show a limitation of the design.
Perhaps I’ll be able to improve image quality somehow in the future, but until then, it certainly is an interesting piece of history.
The following shots are cross-view stereo images – here’s a tutorial on how to view them.
ISCO Kiptaron, Kiptagon and Kiptanar |
Honey I shrank the image circle…
This seems as good a time as any to mention, that projection lenses were not made to cover your still-photography camera’s sensor. Take a look:
Just going by instinct you would expect a projection lens made for 35 mm movie format to cover your full frame sensor, but it doesn’t necessarily have to. Longer focal lengths likely will, but they have never been made to do that and so you don’t know what will happen outside of the small 35 mm movier format area. On the other hand this can lead to some very interesting and unusual results.
And you certainly can’t expect anything from 16 mm lenses. Yes, experience tells me, that these lenses are likely to suffice for M4/3, but even that is beyond what they were made to cover.
This is in no way meant as a scientific reference (as you can see from the rounded numbers) but merely as an overview of what we have to expect as people who love to use projection optics as taking lenses: And that’s certainly a lot of trial and error!
Hopefully some of the error-parts can be avoided by reading this (and similar) articles here, but be advised to take it with a grain of salt when I mention things like “this lens covers a full frame sensor at distance” etc. because when it comes to projection lenses this doesn’t mean that this lens is going to be a great landscape lens providing excellent quality in the corners. It usually means: There’s no vignetting or at least no hard-vignetting, which can’t be corrected or at least softened considerably.
Lenses made for projection of smaller formats, can be a lot of fun in spite, or in some cases even because of their limitations, but if you’re looking for cheap alternatives for fast taking lenses, you likely won’t get happy here.
ISCO Kiptaron (16 mm)
Some of these lenses have also been sold as Philaron. They were made for use on Philips projectors – hence the name – but I assume they’re completely identical to the Kiptaron versions in terms of optics.
25/1.4 ISCO Kiptaron
No hands-on experience, but very likely unusable on anything bigger than M4/3.
35/1.3 ISCO Kiptaron (aka Philaron)
No hands-on experience, but very likely unusable on anything bigger than M4/3.
50/1.2 ISCO Kiptaron MC
Espen Susort – photographer and expert on fast cine and projection lenses from Norway – has used this lens and shared some shots on his website. The lens seems quite sharp for a f/1.2 projection lens and has a surprisingly big image circle, but there is some vignetting at distance on full frame and the rendering will likely not appeal to everyone at medium (portrait) distance. I personally feel like it can look a bit harsh with busier backgrounds, but I’m fairly sure this lens would be quite spectacular for close-distance shooting, including headshots etc. From someone with experience with both lenses I got the information that this one is a newer and improved version of the 50/1.3 with a different optical design.
User Lens of times Mallorca on flickr has also taken some wonderful close-up shots with this one, which you can see in this gallery and Janette Paltian has shared a handful of really beautiful captures on the platform as well.
50/1.3 ISCO Kiptaron (aka Philaron)
This one is highly limited in terms of coverage. On APS-C it might be okay, but even there you will get visible vignetting at some distance. Of course, its speed, combined with its optical construction provides for some nice options for experiments, but the 50/1.2 lens, which features a more sophisticated optical design and bigger image circle, will likely be the better choice if you plan on adapting it.
I had to give it a try anyways and found out that part of the restricted image circle is a result from a narrow lenshood. Unfortunately, this lens hood is also what keeps the front element in place, and so I had to find an improvised solution to take some test shots with this lens. It is reasonably sharp in the center and because it’s no Petzval, but a kind of Sonnar-variant with 5 elements in 4 groups, it’s a nice fast taking lens overall, if you’re willing to modify it and can live with a roughly APS-C sized image circle.
Of course the Kiptaron 50/1.3 could have been used on various 16 mm projectors, but one of those was definitely the Bauer Selecton II-O projector for 16 mm film:
It’s interesting to see that the Astro-Kino-Color V 50/1.25 does give a better results, because my sample of that lens certainly isn’t in pristine condition. While a slight misfocus is absolutely possible due to the shallow DOF and field curvature of these lenses it mirrors my experience with other Astro-Kino lenses, which generally fare pretty well, when compared to similar lenses.
But on its own (and also used slightly closer to its intended distance) the Kiptaron 50/1.3 is a wonderful lens if you don’t mind the small image circle.
The following shot is a cross-view stereo image – here’s a tutorial on how to view it.
50/1.3 ISCO Kiptaron P6
This lens could be identical to the regular 50/1.3 Kiptaron (it certainly seems to be close, judging from a number of images online), it could also be slightly different. It’s reasonable to assume that its name comes from it being used on the Bauer P6 projector.
50/1.3 ISCO Micron-Kiptaron
The same applies to this lens. The difference is, that it was likely used on a projector made by Italy-based manufacturer Microtecnica, which is once again reflected in the name.
50/1.6 ISCO Kiptaron
This one looks very similar to the 50/1.3, so perhaps it’s just a stopped down version. It seems to have a limited image circle as well, but I can’t compare them directly so that’s just speculation for now.
Some nice looking shots by flickr user fotostapel can be seen here.
55/1.2 ISCO Kiptaron MC
I’ve only seen one mention of this lens online. It’s possible that it has been a typo and this focal length doesn’t even exist.
65/1.6 ISCO Kiptaron
75/1.7 ISCO Kiptaron
75/1.7 ISCO Inflight Kiptaron
It was somewhat surprising to see that there’s also a Kiptaron lens with ‘Inflight’ added to the name. The origin of this practice is explained under the Inflight Super-Kiptar section.
75/1.8 ISCO Kiptaron
100/2 ISCO Kiptaron
The two available zoom projection lenses are known to be among the best 16 mm projection lenses with variable aperture ever produced among projectionists. The shorter one seems quite rare and sought after and fetches prices of several hundred Euros regularly in 2025. It likely is a more complex construction and because it was available under several different names, it might not even be a direct Xenon-derivative, particularly as zoom lenses often tend to stray significantly from the original designs they were created from.
You can find more information about these as well as other 16 mm lenses here. Of course there’s lots more to discover on the format as a whole on that interesting site.
20-60/1.8 ISCO Vario-Kiptaron (aka Cinelux-Xenon MC)
It’s said to be among the best of its kind for projection purposes. But in terms of being adapted to a camera, I have my doubts this one will work as well, mainly because of image circle limitations. This is just an assumption and I might be completely off, so if you have one and are willing to try it, please let me know how it goes.
35-65/1.3 ISCO Vario-Kiptaron (aka Cinelux-Xenon MC)
The same applies to this lens. I don’t think it will work well, but the specs are so outstandingly good, that it might be an interesting choice, at least for smaller sensors. While still expensive for an old small-format projection lens, this one is usually a little bit more affordable than the shorter Vario-Kiptaron.
ISCO Kiptagon (8 mm, Super-8)
Now here’s a mystery: Why would you name the lenses for the smallest format almost the same as the ones for the biggest? Is it the idea of bringing it full circle? Or did ISCO run out of brand names starting with Kip- perhaps? Who knows… As shown at the start of this chapter, it’s very likely that these lenses won’t be usable on any modern sensor, but if you’re a lens enthusiast working on a M4/3 camera, perhaps give the longer ones a try and let us know.
It’s possible that there are more of these lenses, but so far these are the only ones I’ve seen any mention of.
16/1.4 ISCO Kiptagon
18/1.3 ISCO Kiptagon
20/1.3 ISCO Kiptagon
25/1.3 ISCO Kiptagon
Hartmut Thiele lists some of the above as Kiptagon S, however so far I’ve not seen a single mention of that name on any Kiptagon lens, so it might either be something used at ISCO internally or just a typo.
15-25/1.6 ISCO Vario-Kiptagon
15.5-28/1.6 ISCO Vario-Kiptagon
15-28/1.3 ISCO Vario-Kiptagon
15-30/1.3 ISCO Vario-Kiptagon
User Fred St on flickr has taken some interesting shots with this lens. Goes to show that you just need a bit of creativity to make something worthwhile with what you’ve got.
16.5-30/1.3 ISCO Vario Kiptagon
18-30/1.4 ISCO Vario-Kiptagon
ISCO Kiptanar (16 mm)
Yet another similar name, which could be a rebranding of the Duotar, or a re-worked design. I’ve only found one single focal length, which could be an indication for having been made for a single application or device. It likely isn’t one of the very early lenses judging by the serial number (296805) likely dating from somewhere around 1955.
50/1.5 ISCO-Göttingen Kiptanar
ISCO Duotar |Trouble comes in double…
Why ISCO decided to create another Petzval-based projection lens series called Duotar, is anybody’s guess. It might have been preferrable for some applications. It might have been cheaper or provided opportunities for faster speeds before certain coating technologies advanced. They only seem to have used this design for 8 and 16 mm film projection, where heat damage might be less of an issue.
According to the book Das Photo-Objektiv by Hans-Martin Brandt it is a 4 elements in 2 groups design. The book doesn’t offer any drawing or further description of the lens however and so the design below is merely based on that information plus a couple of small observations derived from online images of such lenses and could be completely off.
If it is indeed structured like that it would be a pretty close resemblance of the Zeiss Kipronar (which itself wasn’t the first projection lens to use a design like that, as I’ve tried to cover in my recent article The Projection Optics Story about a small US-based company from Rochester). It could even be identical to the Projection Optics Super-Lite, which was patented as early as 1922. Because of the flat rear element it even matches the Super-Lite design more closely.
The spread of serial numbers witnessed so far suggests that it was started simultaneously or at least not far after the initial Kiptar line. It likely wasn’t produced for as long however. Hartmut Thiele mentions 1955 as the start of production, but the low serial numbers of some Duotar lenses might suggest earlier production.
While this list is likely incomplete the lens family seems fairly small in general and like the Kiptar Serie lenses might have been produced in small quantity only. They do have their appeal as taking lenses however, and I would certainly love to try one.
20/1.5 JSCO Duotar (No.: 323114)
50/1.5 JSCO Duotar (No.: 120333, 122073)
It’s not surprising that this lens doesn’t cover a full frame sensor, but on an APS-C one it certainly will work nicely for close-ups and if you don’t mind some vignetting it may even be an excellent portrait lens. The main thing I took away from getting a chance to try this lens and particularly also hold it in my hands and view it close-up, is just how well made this lens series feels. Because each of the lenses in that series look so differently, I thought it was perhaps a haphazardly strung-together line of lenses, but after looking at this one and having it in my own hands, I feel differently about it. They seem to have been ISCOs attempt to compete directly with the Astro-Kino-Color lenses. I have no idea about the reception of both series at the time they were released, but as taking lenses both seem quite promising so far.
Duotar 50/1.5 and C. Reichert Prolum 50/1.6:
I had to get somewhat closer with the Duotar, in order to avoid having most of the frame filled with the strong vignetting. So these shots are mostly intended to compare the rendering.
Duotar 50/1.5 and Optical Proiectar 50/1.6:
The following shots are cross-view stereo images – here’s a tutorial on how to view them.
70/1.5 ISCO Duotar (No.: 352849)
82.5/1.5 JSCO Duotar C
I’ve only seen a couple of images of this lens, but it does look quite similar to the Astro-Kino-Color 85/1.6. Perhaps it was made for the same projector. It certainly seems to be similar in terms of image circle.
85/1.5 JSCO Duotar C (No.: 303595)
Flickr user Leo Roos has taken some great captures with this lens, which show the outstanding characteristics of a lens with these specs and original purpose. The lens itself – with the serial number 303595 – is also quite beautiful as you can see above. You can take a look at his shots here.
ISCO Super-Kiptar | Need for Speed
While continuing the same name, the Super-Kiptar is a completely different design – actually several. It’s not documented how these lenses developed over time, but there are mentions and drawings of their basic underlying design being 6/4 , 6/5 and finally 6/6 and it doesn’t seem to be the difference between the faster f/1.6 to f/1.7 and the slower f/2 to f/2.3 series as well. As usual, it’s more complicated:
It’s possible that most, if not all of these four designs have been used for Super Kiptar lenses, but so far I’ve not been able to find a single sample of both the 6/6 design shown by Karl Macher in his interesting article on the matter, which was used by ISCO in one of their magazine ads at the time. The 6/4 design (even though slightly different, as you can see further below) seems very common.
One possibility is that the lens design changed over time (after all, the Super-Kiptar lenses were used for several decades), another one would be that they varied depending on focal length. Yet another explanation could be that some of the information presented in the sources above, is just incorrect and that some of these designs show different ISCO lenses.
Thankfully I was able to find the following two ads, which – if the information there can be trusted, and I sure hope ISCO wouldn’t claim nonsense specifics about their own lenses – clears up some things at least:
- The Super-Kiptar f/2 is called “Sexpartite high-speed lens with non cemented lens system” That’s very specific and because the lens ad can be dated, lets us know that the Super-Kiptar f/2 lens series was using a 6 elements uncemented design (likely the one shown by Karl Macher in his 1982 article in SMPTE Magazine) after 1978.
- The Super-Kiptar f/1.6 however is called “Sexpartite high-output lens with extra high speed” which doesn’t include any reference to a non cemented lens system and can thus be assumed to still featuring a 6 elements design with at least one, though likely two cemented groups, making it a classic Opic/Xenon.
- The Special Super-Kiptar S features an “S” in its name, which signifies the use for for “deep-curved screens”. In combination with the ad posted after it, which features the new Super-Kiptar S f/1.5 lens, it clearly is proof for ISCO using the S at the end in several different ways.
The second thing in need of some clarification, is the connection between the Super-Kiptar series and the Cinelux lenses by Kollmorgen. An article in the magazine Cinema Canada from 1973 gives some great insights on the Cinelux front. It mentions that Schneider Corporation of America unveiling several new lenses in that year and features quotes from Mr. Wollensak, vice president of SCA, explaining that they were running out of Kollmorgen stock and thus replacing those lenses with improved ones made in Germany.
One has to appreciate the details in the whole connection: A man named Wollensak*, speaking in the name of Schneider about ISCO-made lenses, with a brand name bought from Kollmorgen, whose lenses had been distributed by a company called Goerz**-Inland Systems Division.
(* Wollensak was the name of a very successful manufacturer from Rochester, NY in the US | ** Goerz was one of the most important manufacturers in the early years of the photographic industry in Germany)
These improved lenses are described with some details (like their speed and some of the image quality properties) but no ISCO/Schneider trade name is mentioned and thus it’s impossible to know for sure what they were talking about. You can read my suspicions below, when I go into some details about the ISCO Cinelux-Xenon series.
It would be very interesting to know what projectionists at the time, who changed lenses from the Kollmorgen Cinelux to the new ISCO Cinelux lenses thought about the claims of Schneider of America. Because you have to keep in mind, that even though they might have received multi coating for the first time, the Cinelux-Xenon lenses (which I believe ISCO used as replacement lenses) were likely just regular Super-Kiptars, designed around two decades before.
While very succesful commercially Kollmorgen lenses had a somewhat spotty reputation among projectionists, so it’s not unthinkable that ISCO managed to make good on the quality control front. It’s also fascinating to look at the difference between Kollmorgen’s Cinelux lens designs and ISCOs designs. It immediately reminds me of the obvious differences between US and European car design.
But as things usually are, almost everything has an up- and a downside and while impressive in terms of specs ISCOs new Cinelux Outdoor lenses seem to have been replaced as well not too soon after. And computer-assisted optical calculations must have played an important part in creating even better alternatives.
The Super-Kiptar f/1.6 diagram I created here was based on the layout and observations by dpreview user Bosun Higgs, who separated and re-cemented the elements of such a lens with 60 mm focal length. He specifically mentions the double convex lenses being symmetrical.
In terms of serial numbers Super-Kiptars can be found from 2XX.XXX to 10.XXX.XXX, so they’ve been produced for a very long time as well. As a very rough estimate I think lenses ranging from 200.000 to 1.000.000 were likely produced between 1953 and 1961, those between 1.000.000 and 10.XXX.XXX between 1961 and 1978. It’s unlikely Super-Kiptars were produced in any significant numbers after 1978 because of the availability of improved alternatives available in form of the Cinelux-Xenon MC, as well as the (Cinelux-) Ultra MC. That being said, Super-Kiptars were still part of a price list by US reseller Magna-Tech in 2009, after the Ultra-Star HD lenses had been discontinued.
| 16 mm format |
These lenses seem to be quite rare. The Super-Kiptar 10/1.8 might have some relation to the the Schneider Cinegon/D-Claron 10/1.8/, but I’m not 100% sure about that. The 25/1.4 and 16/2 also seem suspiciously similar to the D-Claron/Cine-Xenon 25/1.4 and 16/2 in terms of specs so I doubt it’s a coincidence.
10/1.8 ISCO Göttingen Super-Kiptar
16/2 ISCO Göttingen Super-Kiptar
25/1.4 ISCO Göttingen Super-Kiptar
35/2 ISCO Göttingen Super-Kiptar
40/2 ISCO Göttingen Super-Kiptar
45/2 ISCO Göttingen Super-Kiptar
Hartmut Thiele mentions the 50-60 mm lenses as made for the 16 mm format as well, but given that I’ve only seen these in 62.5 mm and 70.6 mm barrel diameters makes I doubt that. It’s possible that they were supplied in 42.5 mm as well though, because the lenses themselves seem small enough for that.
| 35 mm format |
Super-Kiptar f/2
The slower Super-Kiptar line (f/2 to f/2.3) is a Double-Gauss construction, but varies between a 6 elements in 4, 5 or a cementless design in 6 groups. At first, all of the lenses I looked at or other people online have opened and reported on, seemed to have a 6/4 design, however the 6/5 one, as well as the 6/6 one are confirmed by ISCO ads and the article by Karl Macher (who was working at Schneider and must have known). So, my current best theory is mentioned above (at the beginning of the Super-Kiptar section) and specifically applies to these f/2 lenses.
And when looking through some of the more severly damaged f/2 models I once got as part of a lens lot, I discovered that two of mine – a 60 mm and a 70 mm variant with quite early serial numbers around 3XX.XXX – were likely 6-5 constructions with a doublet in the rear cell and 3 separate elements in the front.
50/2 ISCO Super-Kiptar
55/2 ISCO Super-Kiptar
60/2 ISCO Super-Kiptar
65/2 ISCO Super-Kiptar
70/2 ISCO Super-Kiptar
The following shots are cross-view stereo images – here’s a tutorial on how to view them.
75/2 ISCO Super-Kiptar
80/2 ISCO Super-Kiptar
85/2 ISCO Super-Kiptar
Andreas Lindemann shared some shots of this lens, specs and sample shots on the allphotolenses site. His assumption is that this lens – with a serial number of 305.827 likely uses a 6 elements in 5 groups construction, just like ISCO shared in their ads. It’s also interesting to note that he views the drawing in Karl Macher’s article as a 6-5 construction:
He might be right and I won’t claim that it’s impossible… but if that’s really the case, what a weirdly ambiguous way of drawing a lens design.
90/2 ISCO Super-Kiptar
95/2 ISCO Super-Kiptar
100/2 ISCO Super-Kiptar
105/2 ISCO Super-Kiptar
110/2 ISCO Super-Kiptar
115/2 ISCO Super-Kiptar
120/2 ISCO Super-Kiptar
125/2 ISCO Super-Kiptar
130/2 ISCO Super-Kiptar
I own a sample of this one, but it may be among the lenses in the worst shape I’ve ever encountered, so it likely only displays a fraction of its original capabilities. So far I haven’t been able to open this lens, so I can’t confirm it for sure, but via a close look at the reflections, I assume that it is a 6-5 construction. Unfortunately that information is no help in terms of specifying dates, as its serial number is unrecognizable.
The combination of focal length and speed is still nice though there are many faster 135 mm f/1.5-f/1.8 taking lens alternatives out there, some of which not even significantly more expensive. It’s also quite heavy, so there’s no significant upside compared to any taking lens.
135/2.1 ISCO Super-Kiptar
140/2.1 ISCO Super-Kiptar
145/2.2 ISCO Super-Kiptar
150/2.3 ISCO Super-Kiptar
Super-Kiptar f/1.6
Many manufacturers increased the speed of their lens series over time, however ISCO must have intended to offer the faster Super-Kiptar series in addition to the slower one. This might have paid off for them, because the f/2 Super-Kiptars were likely sold in larger quantities than the slower ones, probably in part because of the care which went into their design as well as the ads, treating them as equally important. The same happened with the Super-Kiptar S f/1.5 later, which also seems like an additional product meant for specific applications, rather than the new standard.
The f/1.6—1.7 family are 6 elements in 4 groups designs, at least the vast majority of them. There could have been exceptions (very short or long focal lengths) and I’m also not able to rule out different designs in later iterations. But given that even the golden Super-Kiptar lenses, which seem to have been among the later ones made, are all 6-4, it seems unlikely there has been a similar variation like the one which happened within the f/2 series. Because of the regular Xenon design, the rear group of these lenses shows significant damage from heat in some lenses. Overall it may be relatively rare, but it’s good to be aware of that if you decide to look for one. It’s usually visible as darker brown stains in the center of the lens, sometimes accompanied by balsam separation, which makes it even more obvious (they often look like snowflakes or exploded stars).
45/1.6 ISCO Super-Kiptar
50/1.6 ISCO Super-Kiptar
There surely isn’t any lack of fast 50 mm vintage lenses out there and even ones with a speed between f/1.8 and f/1.4 can be bought for next to nothing from time to time. So it’s a valid question why anyone would attempt to try a lens like this on a modern camera, even though it’s lacking in terms of coverage, as well as versatility (giving the missing aperture) and is likely going to cause additional work when it comes to adapting it? Indeed, if you’re not in for the experimentation and ‘fun-in-the-adaptation-process’ part and don’t enjoy working with some significant field-curvature & some slight swirl, it likely isn’t worth it to use a lens like that. Super-Kiptar lenses are single-coated and it’s likely that many of the later multi-coated taking lenses, generated with computer-assisted calculations are going to be better.
Here’s a comparison between the Super-Kiptar 50/1.6 and the (likely Tomioka-made) Auto-Rikenon 55/1.4:
Even wide-open (f/1.4) the Auto-Rikenon is superior in terms of detail captured across the whole image, and when used at a similar stop as the Super-Kiptar this gets even more pronounced. The Super-Kiptar on the other hand has significantly better contrast and – at least to my eyes – in this image clearly more 3D depth due to the way it renders and likely also its field curvature.
I’ve got two samples in this focal length: One seems to be in pretty good shape, the other suffers from a big spot of separation and burn damage, right in the middle of the rear doublet. While that may introduce several types of optical flaws from a technical point of view, I’ve disregarded it all and tried to use the lens in a creative way as what I call the “shortest focal length mirror lens of all time”. Take a look for yourself:
The following shots are cross-view stereo images – here’s a tutorial on how to view them.
In comparison, here are some samples with the intact lens:
I honestly like both because they provide very different things.
55/1.6 ISCO Super-Kiptar
60/1.6 ISCO Super-Kiptar
65/1.6 ISCO Super-Kiptar
I personally love lenses around 60-70 mm in focal length, but am aware that it may be a weird in-between for many people used to either normal 50ish lenses or true classic portrait lenses around 85 mm. This might help keep prices down in many instances and may enable you to get a fast Super-Kiptar for a reasonable amount, if you’re also like me and enjoy working with this focal length or are using a smaller format camera than full frame.
The following shots are cross-view stereo images – here’s a tutorial on how to view them.
70/1.6 ISCO Super-Kiptar
This is the focal length where these lenses get really interesting for a broader audience than just silly me and where many comparable taking lenses are either exceptionally expensive (big name vintage lenses) or lack a bit of character (modern budget alternatives) in my eyes. That being said, don’t expect crazy swirls or bokeh bubbles from a lens like that. They do have a nuanced rendering, right in the middle between a Biotar and an equivalent modern taking lens and thus reminiscent of the famous Double-Gauss cine lenses, they’re likely related to.
I enjoy the versatility a focal length of 70 mm provides, and think this lens can be great fun for street photography, portraiture, close-ups and even capable of decent macro shots, if you’ve got the necessary extension on your adapted lens setup.
While shorter focal length lenses of the series may need to be stripped of their lens hoods in order to avoid vignetting this one (at least the bigger diameter version) can be used with it. It has very good contrast in most situations.
75/1.6 ISCO Super-Kiptar
This golden lens has a smaller diameter (62.5 mm) than most of the other Super-Kiptars, which usually have a maximum diameter of 70.6 mm. It’s possible that golden Super-Kiptar lenses were also supplied with similar double lens barrels seen above, but so far I haven’t been able to spot one. It seems like another indicator that ISCO produced this lens as a series though, or at least intended to, because it feels like a lot of effort for some sort of test series to be produced in 2 different diameters.
75/1.6 ISCO Super-Kiptar (“Dreifarbenprisma”/TV-projection)
This is another interesting lens owned by user mhiller on the german digicamclub forum. According to his information it was used in combination with a “Dreifarbenprisma” (three-colored prism) where it was part of the image creation process of early color television tubes. I’ve read about similar uses for projection lenses before but this mention was the first time I’ve got any confirmation about the use of Super-Kiptar lenses for this purpose.
The lens itself has a different look and body from regular Super-Kiptars. It is unknown if its optical construction is adjusted in order to offer improved performance for the specific task or if it’s identical. It certainly looks like it can use a lens hood, when adapted to a camera though.
80/1.6 ISCO Super-Kiptar
85/1.6 ISCO Super-Kiptar
90/1.6 ISCO Super-Kiptar
At the point when I was conviced to have a pretty good overview of all available Super-Kiptar lenses, this golden sample appeared to dispute that… Because I had already looked into the Cinelux-Xenon lens series the likely connection between these series came to mind immediately. But there’s much more on that further down, if you’re curious.
The lens itself is of course an interesting one, regardless of its color. It may not be up to more modern projection lenses, but with a speed of f/1.6 and a focal length of 90 mm… who cares? It’s a great joy to use and – at least for my taste – still versatile enough. It’s also not that heavy, got a sizable image circle and pretty good contrast.
If you’re looking for a very distinct and unique rendering, this one might look bland to you, but I personally don’t mind having some lenses with smooth rendering as well, particularly in such an allrounder focal length.
95/1.6 ISCO Super-Kiptar
100/1.6 ISCO Super-Kiptar
105/1.6 ISCO Super-Kiptar
110/1.6 ISCO Super-Kiptar
115/1.7 ISCO Super-Kiptar
120/1.7 ISCO Super-Kiptar
125/1.7 ISCO Super-Kiptar
130/1.7 ISCO Super-Kiptar
135/1.7 ISCO Super-Kiptar
ISCO Cinelux-Xenon | A golden “Ultra-Kiptar” after all?
While I’ve tried to clarify earlier that the online mention of an “Ultra-Kiptar” is likely just an error, I have a suspicion that there is in fact something like that from ISCO in the form of the Cinelux-Xenon series. This short-lived (at least in comparison to the Kiptar) lens line could very well have been started by another attempt by the company to improve the faster 6-4 Super-Kiptar designs further. And this upgrade seems to have been significant enough for ISCO to give it its own name.
If you’re curious about these lenses, their performance and what little we know or can assume about their history, I’ll hopefully be able to invite you soon to take a look at The Xenon Story where I’m planning to cover it among several other series of lenses, based on the popular Xenon design by Schneider Kreuznach.
But wait… why the suspicion that these lens series might be related at all? They do look different, don’t they? Well, I thought so as well until I stumbled upon the golden Super-Kiptar lenses. Yes indeed, (as you may have seen above) there are golden Super-Kiptars and while somewhat less common than their black and silver counterparts, I’ve seen enough of them to be sure that it wasn’t just some custom series for a particular customer or a DIY project of some overly ambitious projectionist. They seem to have been made by ISCO. Perhaps they’ve even been marketed, but so far I haven’t been able to find any mention or ad.
All of these lenses are later Super-Kiptars (10.XXX.XXX), I’ve not seen an earlier one. They’re all single coated and from my obserations, they seem to be 6 elements in 4 groups Double Gauss designs, so not the type which Karl Macher showed in his 1980 ‘New Projection Lenses’ article.
When it comes to the Cinelux-Xenon series however, some are single coated and some multicoated and hence showing the MC inscription. They do have the same specs as corresponding Super-Kiptar lenses (f/1.6 to f/1.7 depending on focal length). While that combination speed and good correction and contrast might sound impressive, newer designs, particularly those with uncemented elements in combination with newly developed vastly more powerful lamps seem to have been the more viable solution for the needs of cine projection.
As far as possible production dates are concerned, I had the following thoughts: Schneider of America bought the Cinelux brand in 1972 so 1973 seems like the earliest date for any Cinelux-Xenon lens to appear. The Cinelux-Ultra MC, ISCO’s new flagship series launched in 1978 and so these couple of years could have been the ones where the golden Super Kiptars, as well as the Cinelux-Xenon lenses might have been made, both as a subsitute for the outgoing Kollmorgen Cinelux (Outdoor) lenses, as well as bridging the gap to ISCOs newly designed lens, the Cinelux Ultra MC or Ultra MC, as it was later called due to trademark disputes.
If you’ve ever seen a golden Super-Kiptar or Cinelux-Xenon lens and taken a closer look, you might have spotted that their surface looks very different from the later golden ISCO (Ultra MC) and Schneider (Cine-Xenon) variants. It feels slightly more textured and has a uniquely pale golden tone (there are exceptions though) in comparison. Because of this my initial assumption was that the golden Super-Kiptars and Cinelux-Xenons could have been re-painted Super-Kiptars.
After observing and comparing some of these lenses, I’ve started to doubt that, however. There are some differences in the lenses of same focal length, and so it seems more likely that they got new lens bodies or that they were a continuation until new lens designs were finished. I would still be very surprised if they weren’t identical optically, apart from the multi coating the Cinelux-Xenon MC got at some point.
It took some time to get there, but finally being able to compare two lenses of the same focal length (65 mm) of both the Super-Kiptar as well as the Cinelux-Xenon lens, solidified most of my suspicions, but also disproved others. So here’s what I can almost say with certainty about the Super-Kiptar & Cinelux-Xenon series:
- The optical design of both series seems to be a 6 elements in 4 groups Xenon/Opic (some slight exceptions are possible, particularly for the shorter focal lengths < 50 mm).
- There’s a clear and visible difference in terms of coating between the yellowish single-coated Super-Kiptars and the multi-colored multicoated Cinelux-Xenons.
- Despite sharing the same optics and very close (even overlapping) serial numbers, the Cinelux-Xenons are not just re-painted Super-Kiptar lenses. The former seem to have gotten newly designed lens bodies with differences in in length, segments etc.
- The pale golden tone is not uniform among Cinelux-Xenon lenses. Samples with a more saturated golden tone, similar to later ISCO lenses, have also been spotted.
- Some Cinelux-Xenon lenses don’t have a serial number, so exceptions from the system (outlined below) cannot be ruled out with certainty.
In terms of serial numbers earlier silver+black Super-Kiptar lenses had 6-digit serials initially, while later versions of them also appeared with 7-digit numbers including 9XXXXXX ones. Golden Super-Kiptars ranged from from 10122631 to 10136587 and Cinelux-Xenon (non MC) lenses from 10125001 to 10126078 and finally Cinelux-Xenon MC ones from 10136537 to 10138320
As you can see the Golden Super-Kiptars and Cinelux-Xenon (non MC) have a shared serial number range and it even extends to the Cinelux-Xenon MC lenses, though (at least from my limited observations) not to a big extent.
The difference in coating is clearly visible by the way. If the slight difference between the silver/black and golden Super-Kiptars is rather dependant on the particular samples is hard to say for sure.
Here are two test shots taken with 65 mm focal length lenses of both series, both in pretty good condition. Do you have a guess which is which? You can click on the arrow on the right to see if you’re correct.
As expected the Cinelux-Xenon images do show slightly better contrast, but apart from that the results are extremely close in my perception.
To me personally there isn’t any doubt left about a strong connection between these lens series at this point. But in order to say if they’re identical (apart from the MC) or not it would be necessary to compare several pairs of lenses of the same focal length from both series in detail. So please let me know if you have either golden Super-Kiptar or Cinelux-Xenon lenses.
Inflight-Super-Kiptar
A special and uniquely specific case are the ‘Inflight’ labeled lenses, an addition which also appears on some lenses of the Kiptaron line. I was stumped at first, what this could be a reference to, but it completely made sense, once I found an explanation for it:
“IFE / INFLIGHT / IN-FLIGHT = Inflight Entertainment = lenses designed to be used by airlines to show “scope”-films on board their aeroplanes.”
(super8wiki.com)
It seems like that name was not in any way symbolic but just referencing the fact that these were lenses to be used for movie projection during plane flights and specifically designed for short throw distances necessary in such a confined space.
Another observation: these lenses use the (likely reserved) range between 4.200.000 and 5.200.000, which means they likely originated from 1964 or some of the following couple of years. This would track nicely, because Inflight motion picture projection, which was a thing in the US in particular, started in the early 1960s and it makes sense for ISCO to try and adapt to that market as well.
ISCO Super-Kiptar S | Ready for take-off
The ‘fastest projection lens in the world’ was a fiercly disputed title, particularly in the US market in the 1950s. Wollensak had their Cinema Raptars (f/1.9), Bausch & Lomb their Super-Cinephor (f/1.8), Projection Optics the Hilux (f/1.8), Kollmorgen the Super-Snaplite (f/1.7) ISCO their Super-Kiptar (f/1.6/f1.7).
Finally in February of 1954 ISCO announced the Super-Kiptar S with a 7 element design and an impressive aperture of f/1.5, and only two months later in April a Vidoscope ad proclaimed to feature the new “fastest projection lens in the world” an Angenieux AX Type 86 f/1.4 lens (a Petzval design) and for the shorter focal lengths a Kowa Super-Prominar f/1.4.
Funnily enough, Vidoscope had this ad another couple of months later in the same year, also featuring the ISCO Super-Kiptar S:
We can only speculate if this was due to shortage problems (I’ve been told that Angenieux wasn’t particularly interested in the creation of projection lenses and only made them on demand) or a lack in image quality over a big area, due to the limitations of Petzval designs.
After that, there seems to have been a sort of hiatus in the f-stops battle for a couple of years. When it was rekindled in 1957 between US-based manufacturers Kollmorgen and Projection Optics, launching their own new f/1.4 lenses – which you can read about in our article on Projection Optics – both ISCO and Bausch & Lomb didn’t seem to bother with that anymore for varying reasons.
Soon after the announcement of the Super-Kiptar S, Projection Optics started to claim that f-stops were the wrong metric to measure projection lenses anyway and instead advertised, what they coined the fastest light collecting lens known in their Super-Hilux at f/1.0 (light collecting speed). I’m not technically minded enough to say for sure, if that lens does indeed provide better results when used for cine projection, but as a regular taking lens it seems to have measured at f/1.87, which is still impressive (particularly at some of the longer focal lengths) but certainly not faster in terms of conventional f-stops.
A shoutout to the Benoist Berthiot Cinestar GC series is probably in place here, which featured 6-element lenses with a speed of f/1.55, even though they might not have been part of the main battle. Quite impressive work from the engineers in France, even though we don’t know exactly when these lenses appeared.
As an interesting aside: Schneider (for most of its history the parent company of ISCO) never directly participated in the whole f-stop battle and always kept their own lenses in the fast-but-not-superfast range, which probably helped them in terms of the consistency-rating for even performance and correction. Just when it came to their last ever effort, the Cinelux-Premiere, which made its debut in 2005 and with a variable aperture, they decided to offer an f/1.7 lens. This way no one had any reason to complain… well, except the wallet perhaps.
So, comparing Schneiders ultimate projection lens design, which earned them a Technical Academy Award in 2005 to the basis for the Super-Kiptar, a Xenon-design, they used as early as 1938, it’s fascinating to see how similar the underlying concept still is.
The stunningly fast Super-Kiptar S range was only offered in a limited number of focal lengths. They were also sold relabeled as Philips SK S, but all of them seem quite rare nowadays.
70/1.5 ISCO Super-Kiptar S
80/1.5 ISCO Super-Kiptar S
90/1.5 ISCO Super-Kiptar S
100/1.5 ISCO Super-Kiptar S
Arseniy Shapurov, photographer and lens experimenter based in Vietnam, who does some very interesting work with adapted lenses and focal reducers, has used this lens to good effect. You can take a look at some sample shots here.
He’s using the Philips labeled version, but so far there’s no indication that there’s any difference between those and the ones with ISCO inscriptions.
According to his short presentation of the lens on mflenses, it is a seriously big lens with a back barrel diameter of 64 mm, making it a challenge to adapt. It certainly seems worth it however.
110/1.5 ISCO Super-Kiptar S
120/1.5 ISCO Super-Kiptar S
130/1.5 ISCO Super-Kiptar S
ISCO Spezial-Super-Kiptar
Despite using the Super-Kiptar name, these lenses actually seem more closely related to the T-Kiptagon series. They look the same as the ‘plant pots’ mentioned below and are giant heavy weight lenses (likely incorporating what was sold separately as a WA attachment lens shown in the T-Kiptagon graph). According to the ISCO ad shown above they were made for 35 mm projection, but a projectionist online suggested some of them (likely 40 mm and longer) might even be suitable for 70 mm projection.
As adapted lenses these might be a little bit on the heavy side with 1-2 kg in weight and cumbersome to use with their 101 diameter tubes in general. On medium format they could be very interesting however.
ISCO Spezial-Super-Kiptar
30/2 ISCO Spezial-Super-Kiptar
35/2 ISCO Spezial-Super-Kiptar
40/2 ISCO Spezial-Super-Kiptar
45/2 ISCO Spezial-Super-Kiptar
50/2 ISCO Spezial-Super-Kiptar
55/2 ISCO Spezial-Super-Kiptar
ISCO Spezial-Super-Kiptar S
The Spezial-Super-Kiptar S is the same as the regular version, just optimized for “deep curved screens” according to an ISCO ad, so they likely feature some intentional field curvature.
30/2 ISCO Spezial-Super-Kiptar S
35/2 ISCO Spezial-Super-Kiptar S
40/2 ISCO Spezial-Super-Kiptar S
45/2 ISCO Spezial-Super-Kiptar S
50/2 ISCO Spezial-Super-Kiptar S
55/2 ISCO Spezial-Super-Kiptar S
ISCO Kiptron | Big and Small
The Kiptron name is yet another example, which ISCO decided to use for very different formats. There’s (at least) one 8 mm lens of that name and several 35 mm (or even 70 mm… it’s not specified) lenses.
| 8 mm format |
15-27/1.3 ISCO Silma Vario-Kiptron
| 35 mm format |
The Kiptron lenses look quite modern to me, so perhaps they were some re-branding of the Super-Kiptar range. The speed of f/2 is estimated. There doesn’t seem to be any inscription indicating the real one. Why only some of these lenses were labeled MC is yet another mystery, but from what I’ve seen so far on the used market it almost looks like they could have been export-models for certain markets, rather than a worldwide distributed and advertised series. Things like that regularly happen if there’s some sort of trademark dispute or some type of unfortunate meaning of a particular product name in another language. But for now that’s pure speculation.
50/2(?) ISCO Kiptron MC
55/2(?) ISCO Kiptron MC
60/2(?) ISCO Kiptron MC
65/2(?) ISCO Kiptron MC
70/2(?) ISCO Kiptron MC
75/2(?) ISCO Kiptron MC
80/2(?) ISCO Kiptron MC
95/2(?) ISCO Kiptron
100/2(?) ISCO Kiptron
105/2(?) ISCO Kiptron
ISCO T-Kiptagon | The plant pot
“The plant pot” as dpreview forum user Bosun Higgs dubbed these giant lenses + their holding tubes, were made for 70 mm projection and thus offer a sizable image circle. For some reason ISCO decided that it was better to offer less focal lengths in this series, but rather multiple giant attachments in order to vary the focal length and also add WA lenses. Because of this they used a giant heavy tube to mount the lens in. Inside of this tube there was enough space for a giant wide angle attachment (already twice the size of the projection lens) and on the filter thread of that finally, a Minifier/Magnifier was installed, if needed, which resulted in a 170 mm lens combo.
It’s hard to imagine how freakishly big that whole setup is. There’s a great site with more information on 70 mm cine projection where you can get a lot more information about the technology in general, its history and the details behind it.
Thankfully Bosun Higgs took a shot with the lens + lens holder put on a modern camera, so you got some size reference:
That’s just the lens tube, mind you. The (regular sized) projection lens is hidden deep inside of it.
With no WA-attachment, which would make it slightly bigger already, and particularly no Minifier/Magnifier lens, which would make it significantly bigger. Here’s a mockup showing you what a Magnifier/Minifier looks in front of it:
But adapting-lens-fun aside, these lenses might not look spectacular in terms of specs, with a speed of f/2 to f/2.7, but if you keep in mind that all of them were designed for 70 mm film, and are supposed to provide really good image quality over a big area, they do seem like excellent choices for being adapted on medium format cameras, or for shots with movements.
One seldom seen feature of these lenses is an additional glass element at the rear of the lens. I’ve seen similar ones on the front of the Schneider Kreuznach Cinelux Premiere lenses, but can’t say for sure if they have any impact on image quality or speed. They could have been a protection measure or additional way to block stray light or UV-light.
Most of these lenses seem to be 6 elements in 4 groups Double-Gauss variants, but the 57 and 62 mm lenses are custom-made and likely feature a significantly more complex construction.
These lenses were also sold as Philips BF EF though I’m not sure if the letters are a reference to a particular format or projector type.
57/2 ISCO T-Kiptagon
62/2 ISCO T-Kiptagon
72/2.1 ISCO T-Kiptagon
77/2.3 ISCO T-Kiptagon
91/2.7 ISCO T-Kiptagon
100/2 ISCO T-Kiptagon
While I only have a limited amount of experience with this lens, I can confirm that it’s a great lens for being adapted. Quite sharp and contrasty and with interesting OOF rendering. The lens does produce some bubbles and (surprisingly) even swirly bokeh highlights. At the same time its image quality is quite good across a full frame image circle and so you can play a lot more in terms of compositions compared to most projection lenses. I personally enjoy that combination. One would expect a lens like that to also be quite good at distance, unfortunately their capabilities seem somewhat limited in this regard. It seems more suited for shooting close-up subjects.
The big image circle for a 100 mm lens allows for some great tilt-experiments on a suitable bellows or adapter system, while still providing reasonably sharp results, which is certainly not a given thing at that speed.
Here’s a comparison of the same scene. In the one on the right the lens is tilted, which changes look in a significant way and provides opportunities for unique compositions:
With many lenses of that speed (f/2) tilting the lens might decrease image quality significantly. I was pleasently surprised to see that that doesn’t seem to be the case with the T-Kiptagon.
The following shots are cross-view stereo images – here’s a tutorial on how to view them
105/2 ISCO T-Kiptagon
110/2 ISCO T-Kiptagon
115/2 ISCO T-Kiptagon
120/2 ISCO T-Kiptagon
125/2 ISCO T-Kiptagon
130/2 ISCO T-Kiptagon
135/2.1 ISCO T-Kiptagon
140/2.1 ISCO T-Kiptagon
145/2.2 ISCO T-Kiptagon
150/2.3 ISCO T-Kiptagon
170/2.5 (?) ISCO T-Kiptagon
175/2.7 ISCO T-Kiptagon
Projar / (PC)-Cinelux-AV/Ultra-AV (aka Meridian) | Dress for the slide
Projar was the name ISCO used for many of their slide-projection lenses and it is only tangentially related to the Kiptar. More budget-friendly versions of this family (Projar) were usually Triplets or Petzvals, the S-Projar used a 5 elements Sonnar-derivative design and the later Cinelux-AV, Ultra-AV or PC-Cinelux AV lenses used a variety of designs including 6 element Double-Gauss ones. So at least the longer Projar Petzvals, but also a couple of Cinelux-AV lenses might share the Kiptar/Super-Kiptar heritage and could even be limited versions of those. They certainly also made up a significant chunk of the millions of missing serial numbers in the ISCO catalog, because if the used market shows us anything, it’s that a lot of those have been made over the decades.
Their quality as adapted taking lenses varies greatly (and of course also depends on what you want to achieve), so I would recommend checking out Mark’s tests and overview here in the Projector Lens Group Test.
As far as the PC Ultra AV and similar lenses are concerned, I only have experience with the Schneider Kreuznach made variants, but – while of course not quite as fast – these seem excellent optically, so I would suspect a similar performance of the (likely related) ISCO lenses. According to Schneider’s brochure these were:
“…high performance lenses which have been specifically developed for professional
AV work and for education, science and research. Users in these fields consistently look for
high quality in their projection lenses. If you need the ultimate in sharpness, contrast
and brightness for your multivision or wide-screen presentations, you can rely on SCHNEIDER CINE-XENON AV MC lenses.
These up to 15 elements lenses were developed by using the lastet computing highest standards of accuracy. The use of high quality optical glass and the multicoating
techniques from the field of photography guarantee maximum brightness, outstanding brilliance and unique definition over the entire projection area.”
The PC labeled lenses (perspective correction) are particularly interesting, because they’ve likely been optimized for their purpose and while they’re not outstandingly fast at f/2.8, they are exceptionally well-suited for tilt-shift experiments on t/s bellows systems or adapters and compared to tilt/shift lenses, very lightweight and usually available for reasonable prices.
It’s not fully clear if the Braun Ultralit PL 90 mm f/2.4 is an ISCO lens as well (it could also have been made by Staeble for instance) but if it is, that’s a lens I would highly recommend as well.
The enigma of ISCO serial numbers | Are you serial?
The serial numbers of ISCO lenses do seem to follow some ascending order for the most part, and the whole system doesn’t seem to be as chaotic as the one from Agfa, described in The Agfa Story.
However there are some factors complicating things:
When ISCO launched their taking lenses they likely have been started from 0 (around 1950). Hartmut Thiele has documented the numbers in his helpful book ‘Große Nummernsammlung Photoobjektive’ with great care and effort, but there are still big chunks of numbers missing. Particularly projection lenses, which were produced in significant numbers, are barely mentioned, which might indicate that missing serial number ranges were reserved for the production of these lenses at several points.
But even those reserved ranges of numbers don’t explain or cover the numbers of ISCO projection lenses fully. Thus, it’s possible, that the Kiptar/Super-Kiptar/Projar range of lenses got their own numbering system initially, which might have been started at the same time (or close) to the taking lenses as well.
Then at some point – likely in 1961 – ISCO left a giant gap between 990.000 and 3.400.000 empty in the serial number system, perhaps to account for all the (cine projection lenses, slide projection lenses, anamorphic lenses, enlarging and repro-) lenses which hadn’t been counted or given a serial number at all. From this point on all lenses were counted in one shared serial number system.. at least for a couple of decades.
Sounds complicated already? That’s only part of it. Because at some point the company – probably on behalf of the newly established Schneider Corporation of America – decided to assign huge batches of serial numbers (usually one million) to Kiptar/Super-Kiptar and Projar projection lenses and many of these numbers may have been given to re-housings/adapters of Kiptar/Super-Kiptar lenses. Bosun Higgs has documented that interesting practice by ISCO/Schneider America on dpreview:
Many Super-Kiptar lenses come with what he dubbed a Matryoshka lens barrel with two metal tubes, an outer one with 77.6 mm (a standard of cine projection, particularly in the US), and an inner one with a 62.5 mm diameter (a standard of cine projection, particularly in Europe). It’s particularly surprising that they gave each barrel a different serial number. It seems that all of the lenses with such a combination used a high 7-digit and in later cases 8-digit serial number. In this case those numbers are reserved ones, left out among the ISCO taking lens system. Thiele mentions some vast gaps and that’s absolutely true. The company seems to have expected to produce and sell high quantities of those lenses. We don’t know whether those numbers were ever filled completely, but the ranges from 3.600.000 to 4.100.000, 4.200.000 to 5.200.000 , 5.300.000 to 6.300.000 and from 1970 (end of the taking lens production) the range of 6.306.080 and 10.138.320 was likely filled with all sorts of cine and perhaps also slide projection lenses as well. The ranges of serial numbers reserved for projection might have extended to the Projar (slide projection) series – even though these usually don’t show any serial number inscription – as well as all of the Anamorphic attachments as well. These two types likely made up a significant part of the numbers as well.
So, to my current best knowledge the serial numbers of ISCO lenses were actually never integrated into the Schneider Kreuznach system but rather boosted immensely by reserving up to a million of them in advance. Perhaps this was the result of difficulties within the initial alternating system, because the production of taking lenses and projection lenses was likely separate in some areas/steps and thus it could have been a challenge to keep up with changes in charges/numbers.
Did ISCO really produce more than 10.000.000 lenses? It’s hard to say for sure due to the double numbering system of adapters/housings described above and some reserved ranges of serial numbers, which might have been left incomplete. But given that ISCO also produced a significant number of slide projection lenses – and that many of their later (highly successful) projection lens series used their own numbering system, it seems quite possible. Based on anectotal evidence at least, Kiptar and Super-Kiptar lenses seem to have been well-known and widely used all around the world, even in the US and UK where there was plenty of local competition.
User Fabian on the filmvorführer forum found this great german ad, where ISCO certainly sounds very proud of the success their projection lenses had all around the globe, in big name venues and even cruise ship cinemas:
I’ve tried to create a visual timeline illustrating my current best theory on the ISCO serial number systems. I’m sure there are still lots of errors and missing pieces in there, but it should at least give you an overview of some relevant aspects.
Big Thanks to…
Gudrun Besler (aorta-besler) for sharing her wonderful images and information about the lenses she uses. You can find her work on facebook, instagram and fotocommunity.de
Bosun Higgs for his excellent observations, drawings, images and for sharing his vast knowledge on the topic.
Kurt Tauber, collector and owner of kameramuseum.de for his insights.
Hartmut Thiele for his excellent and thorough work assembled in a number of helpful books
Espen Susort for publishing a lot of highly valuable information on his site.
Helge for sharing some shots of and taken with such an unusual lens.
Bömighäuser, Gorvah & mhiller on the digicamclub forum for the great information.
Der amateurphotograph for documenting his adventures around using unusual optics.
The owner of the hans-egede website for the unique documentation.
Dick Boschloo for sharing some relevant information about the Cinelux-Xenon lenses.
Flickr user Leo Roos for his great Duotar lens image as well as the excellent sample shots.
Flickr user nefotografas for sharing some great shots and information on his lenses.
Flickr user blue bubble for the nice shots of the unqiue Kiptar lens.
Several more people on the mflenses, digicamclub and dpreview (adapted lens) forums.