Kyoei Acall Lenses and clones

cyberjunkie · Posted: Wed Nov 26, 2014 2:54 pm Post subject: Kyoei Acall Lenses and clones

Doing a research about Kyoei made lenses, i found other names.
So i'm adding the brands i found myself, comparing pictures of lenses.
As "benchmark", i used a peculiar 135mm f/3.5 lens, with two rings at the front of the lens (diaphragm and preset).
It's the smaller brother of the famous (and sought for) Vivitar 135mm f/1.5. If i remember correctly, there should be another brother, the middle one (a 135 f/2 ?).
Exactly the same make. Impossible to be confused.
The result is that i found another relationship between Vivitar serials and the original lensmaker:
the lenses with a serial starting with "19" are Kyoei Acall.

The other brands used for Kyoei lenses i personally found are:
Soligor, Berolina, Amanda De Luxe, Petri, Kuribayashi, Accura, Telesar, Komura, Cunor
Some duplicate the brands already reported by Attila, the others can be added to the list...

It seems that the Kyoei lenses are not regarded as particularly good, their usefulness seems to be especially linked to specialistic UV photography (the 35mm at the start of this thread), or seen as good alternative lenses for Leica (LTM mount).
Unsurprisigly, the M39 lenses are particularly appreciated by japanese amateurs, and most informations are available in that language.

I got curious, though... so i'm buying a couple of Kyoei-made lenses in T-mount, and soon i'll check if their only forte is the 16-leafs diaphragm... Smile

If they are nearly as good as most Komuras, i would consider myself fortunate to own a Kyoei!
IMHO, Komura was the best third party maker, and the only one ambitious enough to fight the big names at the very high end of the market.
Tamron made a rare Dagor-type for large format, but Komura made a set of wonderful lenses for Bronica, duplicators for most medium format bodies, and a line of large format lenses for 6x9cm and 4x5 inches.
The teles and the high speed LF lenses were made for a small niche, but were very interesting.
I owned a 152mm f/2.8 with 4x5" coverage, more or less a Xenotar copy, and VERY close in quality to it!!

Of course, any other additional information is more than welcome.
This kind of threads are especially useful, even after years, cause the informations are not easy to come by.
There is a general lack of informations about smaller japanese lens makers, especially from the fifties to the seventies.
At the same time, some of their lenses go for plenty of money nowadays, especially the faster ones.
The only Kyoei/Vivitar 135mm f/1.5 i found on Ebay is sold for 2300 (euros or USD, can't remember)!

cheers

Paolo

kds315* · Expire: 2021-03-09

I split this topic off Paolo as it was about a specific Kyoei lens and not about all of them in different clones.

I advise to open up a new thread please for such topics in future, so I don't have to interfere - OK? Mille grazie.

***

It is an interesting topic and I expect quite a few responses Wink

Macca · Joined: 20 Mar 2012 Posts: 248 Location: Glasgow, Scotland.

FWIW I have the Komura 35mm 2.5 in unidapter mount and can confirm it`s very similar in style but I would say slightly superior build quality to the three Petri Kuribayashi lens I have, the 35mm 2.8,28mm 3.5 and 135mm 3.5. The colour rendition and contrast are not dissimilar. I also have the komura 75-150 zoom.
The komura 35mm has something extra in rendition though, not sure if it`s tonal range but it is "finer" and the colours though saturated still have an organic look to them, the Petris can be more vivid or cartoon like at times.

Not an extensive comparison by any means, I only picked up an adapter for Petri to emount recently so am still messing with them.

The glaring initial similarity is how badly they all flare! The Petri 35mm in particular with any light source even close to the frame gives crazy halos, a hood is a must.

I find the Komuras to be very interesting and have been watching some leica mount ones for some time but not pulled the trigger yet.

I`ve read on a couple of sources that it was staff members from komura who left and set up Kyoei so similarities are to be expected but how much actual crossover there was is up for discussion, I hope this thread dislodges a few boulders for you.

cyberjunkie · Posted: Wed Nov 26, 2014 11:36 pm Post subject:

BTW, the reference to the usefulness of the 35mm f/3.5 for UV photography, and some other interesting infos about Kyoei lenses (and some of the various brands that sold the same optical design), come from the very nice site of a fellow italian, savazzi.net.
http://www.savazzi.net/photography/35kyoei.html

The lens used as the base for my research is this Cunar i own: 135mm f/2.8, with 16 iris blades, with T-mount (MD, must buy a PK to use it!)

This Berolina, with same specifications, is of slightly different vintage (zebra barrel)

And this is one of the variations of the barrel, marked Acall. There is also a version with the two thinner rings at the front, but i don't find the pic

The pictures of the famous Vivitar 135mm f/1.5 can be found here:
http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Vivitar_Professional_135mm_f/1.5

I came to the conclusion that they share the same blood, but at the same time it's evident that Kyoei changed the mechanical build many and many times (as noted on Enrico Savazzi's page)

I invite everybody who has infos, or can report first-hand about the "character" of his/her Kyoei lens, to chime in

cheers

Paolo

luisalegria · Expire: 2018-01-18

Hi Cyberjunkie,

Your #1 seems to be Tokina-made, or rather, at the time, Tokyo Koki. This lens, exact build, etc., is found in the Tele-Tokina brand, and also in a version with the Tokina-specific 47mm interchangeable mounts - I have one of these. The same lens seems to have been sold throughout the 1960's.

#2 seems to be from a series often branded as Itoh Higon, which I believe was the house brand and Itoh Kogaku the actual maker. Itoh still exists as a lens grinding firm. There is quite a substantial series of these covering the range 35mm-500mm. I have some of the longer ones. They are, internally and externally, like nothing else. They are much harder to find than the Tokinas.

#3 Is of course the original design, and you have a rather uncommon lens as this is one of the very few Acall-branded 135/2.8's I have seen. Some people have rebranded versions of this including member Univer.

There were a lot of lens makers in Japan at the time making simple lenses like these 135's. The optical formulas were largely similar. But this does not imply that they came from the same makers or the same designers.

cyberjunkie · Posted: Thu Nov 27, 2014 8:28 am Post subject:

I had already doubts about the first one... you're right, it has a Tokina look.
The second one, I don't know, probably you're right. I'm not an expert in this field, I'm here to learn, first, and then to share a few ideas, submitting them to those with more experience.
What I learned from simple observation is that that there have been some kind of relationship, of exchange, between Japanese lensmakers, especially from WWII to the seventies.
I have seen a picture of a Kyoei lens, with the typical (and elegant) feature of Fujita lenses : the rounded chromed button on the preset ring.
Once upon a time that sort of collaboration was very common: most French Petzval lenses (made by famous and highly regarded brands) were built in a couple of adjacent alleys, and the collaboration between the different workshops was intense. For a single brand could not do everything in-house. Cutting the glass, grinding, polishing, then making all the barrel parts... it was an almost impossible task.
The reason for a collaboration between small Japanese brands could have been of another nature, though I'm starting to believe that the links were wider, and stronger, than we already know.

Have you checked the page about the Vivitar?
If I remember correctly it was calculated in the USA, according to NASA specs, and (as usual) made by a Far East maker.
Does it look Kyoei in your opinion?

Without reliable informations it's just (hopefully educated) guesswork.
The two barrel styles of the 35mm f/3.5 on savazzi.net page could have been of two different makes, if you didn't read "Acall" Smile

I am a novice. I know nothing about 35mm Japanese lenses of that vintage.
That's why I love this forum!
I feel that i have to stress it, i'm in no position to support my guesswork with a decent level of competence!
Having said all that, and payed homage to the peculiarity of the forum, I can personally attest that even those who earn a living off their knowledge can misjudge.
A well known photographica shop sold me a no-name fungus infected Petzval, that they could not open (probably they gave up soon..). With a home made tool and a lot of hammering I could finally open the shell... and found a pearl
It was a strange reversed Petzval design, with Voigtlander "Wien und Breunschweig" inked on the rim of the lenses!
Maybe built to order, who knows... and made before 1862, IIRC.
One of a kind, probably, as a very competent expert had never seen a Voigtlander reversed Petzval (no doubt about, the optical layout, the glasses can't be assembled the normal way).
That was when Ebay was less... crowded Smile

Today you'd never get a very large no-name Petzval for cheap!
Interesting story, isn't it? Iam offering it as an encouragement, for all the romantic treasure hunters out there... Smile

cheers

Paolo

luisalegria · Expire: 2018-01-18

Which Vivitar?
There have been hundreds of lenses sold as Vivitars over 40 years. Vivitar was a marketing company like many others, though probably the most successful of all.
Nearly all of them have come from some Japanese maker or other, not all covered by the famous serial number system. Later ones are mostly from Korea and now China. Nearly all were the original makers own designs with cosmetic alterations to suit Vivitars aesthetic requirements.
This is not to say that Vivitar didn't order lenses to spec, such a large customer had huge bargaining power with the third party makers, just as Allied Impex/Soligor and even Spiratone/Accura also, in their day.
The only maybe-NASA related ones are those series 1 lenses (some of them anyway) where an outfit that consulted on the lens calculations also did NASA work. And of course the Perkin Elmer solid cats, which are unique.

A lot of lenses shared parts, true. This is not unusual under the circumstances. Another similar situation is German 1920's-30's folding cameras where second tier stuff from Munich or Dresden tends to have a lot of bits that look suspiciously similar.
There are much later cases in Japanese lenses where evidently competing lenses, from different makers, share knobs and even tripod mounts, etc. It is a fascinating collecting field with many surprises.

cyberjunkie · Posted: Thu Nov 27, 2014 10:18 am Post subject:

Sorry, i typed the previous post at the phone.
Once home i corrected and added the last part... in the meantime you posted yours.
Give a look with attention. There is a link to the page about the Vivitar 135mm f/1.5, with details about the NASA, and everything else.
Wait, here it is again:
http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Vivitar_Professional_135mm_f/1.5

Another fascinating story...

ciao

Paolo

P.S.
- I checked the aesthetics of Itoh lenses, and i think you're right... but i could find NO pics of the "zebra" version. All were black.
- I've also seen some images taken with the Tokyo Koki Tele-Tokina 135mm: maybe it's not very sharp wide open, but i've been impressed by the smooth, rounded highlights in the OOF areas. The same picture was shot from f/2.8 to f/16, and the background had a very nice rendition in all of them, each in its peculiar way. A perfect example of how the control of DOF affects the general character of an image.
- ... and i have to eat my words about the Vivitar 135mm f/1.5 serial: definitely it looks much more like a Itoh Kogaku, than an Acall

cyberjunkie · Posted: Sat Nov 29, 2014 9:59 am Post subject:

A further consideration about the famous/unknown (at least to me, before i researched objectives with the two front rings):
the Vivitar Professional 135 f/1.5

Currently there is the same lens on sale on Ebay, with the Berolina brand.
With the informations you gave me, and with the support of some other pics i have seen, it seems that the Vivitar lenses with serials starting with "19" were probably manufactured by Itoh Kogaku.

If some Vivitar high-end objectives collector/lover reads this post, i'd like to know what do you think...

A question about forum netiquette/best practices:
i just found a Isco Tele Iscaron 180mm /2.8, with the latest barrel style (completely different from the pictures of the lens i found online).
In this forum there is very little about the Isco 180mm f/2.8. Was going to add the pics of the lens to this thread, as the last addition to my recent LBA attack, then i thought that the lens is not very common (it's in M42 mount, but it looks to be a T2 ring), and maybe it deserves a separate thread... but at the same time i don't want to spam the forum starting too many threads.
I found two threads about the same lens. One is mostly about the modification the lens had already, and the way to change mount. The other has no pics and refers to an old Ebay auction. Should i add the pics to one of those posts?
What's the right choice?

thanks for the wealth of information provided by the M42/T2 experts

cheers

Paolo