Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: The quality of the ISCO Gottingen Anamorphic KA298R Line

This is topic The quality of the ISCO Gottingen Anamorphic KA298R Line in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 07-31-2011, 06:27 AM:

I take it that ISCO was once part of Gottingen...and they made a number of anamorphic attachments, an MC line and the KA298 line. These are quite old, yes? Should I consider them to be ISCO quality as we know it today or more on the line of the old Bausch & Lomb CinemaScope attachments....i.e., not going to give a high quality image.

Anyone familiar with ISCO when they were Gottingen?

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 07-31-2011, 06:49 AM:

Gottingen is town (in Germany), not a company. In fact, ISCO, now a division of Schneider Optics, STILL resides in Gottingen:

P.O. Box 200155
D-37081 Göttingen / Germany

ISCO lenses are ISCO lenses. The KA298 was what we later know as the ISCO-ULTRA anamorphic.

If the lens has the "MC" designator (Multi-coated) and isn't cloudy with carbon soot, then it should be fine though it is a "reverse" anamorhpic. Reverses were NEVER as good as normals. The image always have a bit of a barrel distortion to the image. that is just the nature of the beast (all reverses).

Note, the reverse anamorphics never got beyond the "Ultra" line whereas the normals got to the Ultra-Star and then Blue-Star. Since theatres started to become shorter and shorter, the need for reverses diminished.

-Steve

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 07-31-2011, 07:52 AM:

Thanks Steve. Actually there were two different ISCOs offered; one was called ISCO-Gottingen MC and the other had the KA298 designation. I was wondering about the quality difference between the two. ISCO Ultras are very good lenses.

As for the Gottingen, I hadn't seen that hypenated on ISCO lenses before.

Posted by Christian Appelt (Member # 1067) on 07-31-2011, 08:24 AM:

Schneider was established in 1913 as "Joseph Schneider Optische Werke" in the town of Bad Kreuznach (state Rhineland-Palatinate). Their first cinema lenses were introduced in 1915.

Isco was established in 1936 as "Jos. Schneider & Co., Optische Werke, Göttingen", their lens designer was former Schneider chief optical engineer Albrecht Werner Tronnier. Göttingen is a well-known university town in the state Lower Saxony( about 190 US miles from Bad Kreuznach).

Schneider went to insolvency in 1982 and was sold to Heinrich Manderman who owned a number of well-known photo related companies (Rollei, Orwo, Exakta, Praktica). Today, Schneider Kreuznach is owned by his family.

Following the Schneider insolvency in '82, Isco was restructured and named Isco-Optik GmbH. In 2003, they became insolvent too and were bought by a Swiss investor group. In 2008, Isco became a division of Schneider Kreuznach again.

OT: Göttingen also had a film studio complex where more than 90 German feature films were produced between 1948 and 1961.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 07-31-2011, 12:00 PM:

Steve is right. Both lenses are plenty good. The MC is later and (slightly) better. I have recently had 22 KA298's disassembled, cleaned and recalibrated. They are just fine for any normal use. Louis

Posted by Robert Throop (Member # 61) on 07-31-2011, 12:36 PM:

quote: Steve Guttag
it should be fine though it is a "reverse" anamorhpic.

I'm not sure about the Isco's but the original KA298's were Kollmorgan and were a standard forward anamorph. The reverse lenses were designated KA299 and would take a four inch diameter backup lens.

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 07-31-2011, 03:39 PM:

Close, but not quite Robert. The KA298 and KA299 were indeed Kollmorgan (Kasaka) designations...however, the KA299 was BOTH a reverse and forward anamorphic...you'll note it had both distance marking and threads on BOTH ends.

The KA298R denotes that it is a reverse anamorphic but a 2-25/32 diameter.

ISCO continued the KA298 name for reason I don't know since the progression on the ISCO line, in terms of design, was from the Kiptar (Black and Silver body anamorphic) and I've seen some black body ISCO anamorphics that look like the "Ultra" version. The Kiptars were not MC and the first "KA298"s by ISCO also were not Kiptars and hence the "MC" designator later in production...in fact, it seemed that the MC designator was continued even though most every lens at some point in the '80s was multi-coated (that is, it was presumed the lens was multicoated so why bother adding superfluous information?)

-Steve