Classic Camera Reviews

The business end of the lens, at full extension. You can see two helicals, upper and lower, and the rack portion.

Two-Touch Focusing
Most people are familiar with the terms "one touch" and "two touch" as applied to zoom lenses. With a one touch, there's a single ring that you twist to focus and push pull to zoom, while a two touch has two separate twist rings. Well, how about a two touch focusing movement?

Built into the forward tripod shoe of the lens (I'll come back to the other tripod shoe later, but suffice it to say that this is not a lens you use without a tripod) there's a focusing rack with knobs such as you might expect on a large format camera. Interchangeably affixable to either knob is a long (90mm, 33/4") focusing lever. Twiddle it through no less than 13/4 turns, and the index mark on the lens moves smoothly--so incredibly smoothly--out along a scale that is marked in meters on one side, and feet on the other: in meters, 50-15-10-8-6-5-4-3.5, in feet, 165-50-33-26-20-18-16-14-12. There are separate engraved indices for these: they are not approximations on either side of the same line.

Once you have wound the focusing lever as far as it will go, start focusing conventionally with the helix. This is the longest and smoothest acting I have ever used, and it is engraved with its own (complex and detailed) focusing scales. The first full turn takes you down to about 1.85 meters or 6 ft; the second to just over 1.4 meters, or 4'8"; and the last 1/6 of a turn or so to rather under 1.4 meters, a bit over 4 ft. At this distance, the image size on the film is slightly bigger than 4/10 life size: helpfully marked in red are the reproduction ratios of 1:5, 1:4, 1:3, and 1:2.5 (the closest marked) and in green "2x" which I take to be the required exposure compensation at the closest focusing distance. Remember, this lens antedates through lens metering.

The versatility of this focusing arrangement is astonishing. For focusing in the normal range, the lever is very quick indeed, and by the time you are in the near macro range--you can fill the frame with a butterfly at 4 ft or so--it is unparalleled for rapid focus adjustments.

What is more, at full extension (or anywhere else), there is no play anywhere, despite the enormous focusing movement and the fact that it is a mass of adapters and detachable parts. These include the lens shade (82mm thread); the main focusing mount with its click-in filter holder near the rear; the focusing lever; the intermediate tube (engraved "WE") with a subsidiary accessory foot; a threaded T-mount adapter; then a
T-mount, both the tube and the T-mount adapter held in place by threaded rings so that the mating surfaces are flat to flat (with locating pins to stop unwanted rotation). The gel filter holder takes 45mm square gels and has its own little ball catch to lock it in place. The whole thing is an absolutely stunning piece of equipment.

The basic lens, with gel filter holder but without intermediate tubes, adapters, focusing arm, or lens shade, weighs about 1.7 Kg, a fraction under 33/4 lbs. Bolting on all the goodies (except the T-mount, which can vary in size and weight) adds about another quarter-kilo or 9 oz. The basic length of the stripped lens is 187mm (73/4") at infinity but 304mm, over 12" long, at the closest focusing distance. The rear tube (without T-mount) adds about 40mm (near enough 15/8") to this, and the shade another 40mm or so.

A close-up of the focusing scale. At this point, the helical focusing scales have just moved off the end of the main scale: there is about 75mm (3") more extension available.

Medium Format Charmer
The Pantie-Killer (as its owner affectionately calls it) is impressive enough with 35mm, but with the right adapters it will cover 6x6cm at infinity and 6x7cm at anything much closer, so with a camera having a focal-plane shutter it is a staggeringly desirable lens for medium format: a Pentax 6x7cm, say. With a 645 it would go all the way to infinity: if I had a Mamiya 645, I would be desperate for this lens.

The lens is engraved "Zoomar" under the Kilfitt logo, as Zoomar actually bought out Kilfitt in (as far as I know) the early 1960s, though production continued in Germany. Performance is more than adequate, without being stunning: optically, I suspect that a modern design (with floating elements and multi-coating) could be even better. But the point is, no one would make a lens of this mechanical quality today: and if they did, no one could afford to buy it. At a guess, you couldn't build it to sell for much less than $5000. Today, it's so rare, but so relatively unappreciated, that it's almost impossible to price. Someone who really, really wanted it (and had the money) might cheerfully pay well over $1000 for it; or it might languish unsold at a camera fair at $100.

For the user, it remains an extremely good lens. To a collector, it must be even more desirable. It doesn't have Leitz or Zeiss engraved on it, but it is rarer and (dare I say it) better made than many things that do bear those desirable logos; so to the discerning collector, such as the gentleman who loaned me this one on conditions of strict anonymity, it is a very great prize indeed.