Zeiss Ikon A-G Dresden Kinostar 12cm Series III

Layer-cake · Joined: 18 Mar 2013 Posts: 560 Location: Cape Town

I've had this for a while now, bought it originally to resell but there are some separation bubbles in the front element around the edges so I'm keeping it.

So what I've been thinking of doing is converting it to use as a tilt/shift lens but I'd like to know if it will be worth it. not much info that I've been able to find other than it might be a petzval designed projector lens.

there is no indicator as to what speed it is either that I can see anywhere?

ZoneV · Expire: 2011-12-02

I suppose a speed around f/2.0 or a bit darker.
Petzval lenses have normally small image circles - so not very good to make a tilt/shift lens - as long as sharp images are wanted.

Layer-cake · Joined: 18 Mar 2013 Posts: 560 Location: Cape Town

its quite a big lens 10cm from top to bottom and by looking at the image circle it seems to be around 7-8cm wide with a registration distance of 6cm,

I was thinking its enough room to play around with to make an adapter using a car CV rubber boot and some legs from a generic gorilla tripod stand for MFT.

thanks for the speed guess I reckon you may be right looking at the size of the glass

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

+1 about F2.0 don't make any mods rare item , don't ruin it

luisalegria · Expire: 2018-01-18

Could be a Petzval. Could be some sort of double gauss.
If it has an image circle as said, this could cover 6x6 and possibly be mounted on a 645 camera or a Speed Graphic.
Would likely make a very interesting portrait lens.

Layer-cake · Joined: 18 Mar 2013 Posts: 560 Location: Cape Town

Layer-cake · Joined: 18 Mar 2013 Posts: 560 Location: Cape Town

looking at this schematic it would say its closer to a petzval design than the others.

if you look at the lens on the far right mine has a more flattened surface on the lens facing out and. the second lens is a bit more convex, the group on the left is pretty much the same.

kds315* · Expire: 2021-03-09

Rather Petzval, not Double Gauss, the latter was used for the Visionars, not earlier from my docs.

ZoneV · Expire: 2011-12-02

Layer-cake · Joined: 18 Mar 2013 Posts: 560 Location: Cape Town

ah i see your point, I was thinking it could give the pics a petzvalish type effect with the right angles being used.

luisalegria · Expire: 2018-01-18

A 12cm Petzval may, depending on the degree of field curvature, show an effect on a 35mm or APS-C format.
There were some Russian projection lenses shown here that do have such intense curvature and give a recognizable Petzval effect on digital.

Petzvals are sharp in the center - big deal, who wants that. We want sufficiently fuzzy edges away from the center for "the look".

Its more likely that that thing, if a Petzval , will give you its maximum Petzval quality on a format closer to its maximum coverage, which would be about 6x6.

Layer-cake · Joined: 18 Mar 2013 Posts: 560 Location: Cape Town

thanks luis, that puts it into a good perspective for me.

kiddo · Joined: 29 Jun 2018 Posts: 1121

I'm looking for information related of Kinostar 10cm ,but cannot find any pictures taken with this lens, is it a triplet or not? The pictures that have been posted before , are not available anymore,do you guys have this lens?

Layer-cake · Joined: 18 Mar 2013 Posts: 560 Location: Cape Town

There's a pretty good Facebook page where the guys do loads of conversions to these projector lenses.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2161767920526039/?ref=share&mibextid=NSMWBT

kiddo · Joined: 29 Jun 2018 Posts: 1121

i also see kodak retinar s-av 150mm 2.8 bgoing very cheap, but cannot see any pictures taken with this lens adapted
thank you for the link, amazing shots definteley