Kilfitt/Zoomar telephotos

[miha_steinb_cher]

Does any board member have any experience with Kilfit/Zoomar long lenses? How do

matching converters preform?

 

Best regards,

 

Miha

[ronald_moravec1]

They were good lenses for the time. Converters were not good at the time.

[miha_steinb_cher]

Thank you very much for the answer!

 

Best regards,

 

Miha

[profhlynnjones]

Dr. Frank Back invented the Zoomars and he made them for other lens companies. The first we can remember for refular cameras was the Voightlander. Dr. Back escaped the Nazis to the US. Kilfitt was a good European optics company but most of the similar companies died in the 60's and 70's. I was acquainted with Dr. Back after he retired, a very nice man who loved photography.

 

Most of the zoom lenses for still photography were not very good until recently, but with slide film they were tolerable. Dr. Back made a superb video zoom for sports photography (ca 1948) and he made a superb zoom lens on a Kodak Cine Special specifically for Dr. Julius Webber in the 50's (one of the greatest of the medical photographers) and he loaned the system to me for an important surgical film back in 55 or 56.

 

Lynn

[al_kaplan1]

I've no experience with the converters but the lenses were pretty decent. European independant optical companies, like Kilfit and Astro, and to some extent Angenieux, made longer lenses with interchangeable mounts for a wide variaty of TYPES of cameras, from 35mm motion picture cameras with an 18x24mm negative to medium format cameras like the Pentacon-Six and Hasselblad 1000F. Some lenses had stunning performance on the movie frame but weren't all that great over the full 6x6cm image, while other were pretty decent about covering 6x6 at the sacrifice of some central resolution.

 

In general they were single coated and used rather simple optical designs, with as few elements as possible to minimize flare. For use on a 35mm SLR you'd be as well of looking for a Spiratone lens or the Sterling Howard Tele-Astranar. They both made a 400mm f/6.3 and both were very good. They sold for about $40 back in the 1970's. If you can find a late model it might be multi-coated. Spiratone called it "Plura Coat". They both take standard T-mount adapters.

[dsms photos]

Dear Lynn,

 

do you also inbfo on the perfoemance of the Reflex (500, 1000mm) Zoomars (maybe compared to the Zeiss or Questar equivalents)?

 

Thanks, Klaus