 Posted: Thu Jun 20, 2019 12:09 am Post subject: ISCO Westron 3.5/35 small glass/plastic barrel |
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Mos6502 wrote:
I've had an example of the ISCO Westron 3.5/35 with the large front element and zebra style barrel in my collection for a few years. Aside from being flare prone, it's a great performer. I had seen the later Westron 3.5/35 with the plastic barrel, which curiously had entirely new optics (including a very much smaller front element which is the most noticeable outward difference in the glass) but had never seen photos taken with it.
One showed up on ebay in nice shape and for a reasonable price (sub $50) so I got it. Plus my Zebra version was in M42, and this plastic version is in Exakta mount.
Very curious lens. Aperture is manual with click detents. No pre-set action. Front element focusing instead of unit focusing - the only wide angle I've had which is built this way. Performance? Quite bad, LOL. At least at the extremes, wide open and close focus together gives a very soft and very noticeablely glowy image.
Below are full size crops, top f/3.5, middle f/5.6, bottom f/8.
Below, full image downsized, shows that even at a smallish web size, the wide open glow and softness is apparent.
And the lens itself:
I'll do a comparison between the plastic and zebra versions sometime soon. It's obvious to me that this later lens was built to a price, and though it's likely fine at medium/average distances and small apertures in use, it's worlds away from the older version, and nowhere close even to the plastic barrel Enna 3.5/35 it would've competed with (to say nothing of the Japanese wide angles, which admittedly were more expensive). |
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