Interesting find: Itoh Kogaku Higon Zoom 1:5.6 f=100mm-200mm

Cost: $20 (average market price unknown)

Sometime you just buy on the looks alone. When I saw this lens in a small Chinese thrift store in Richmond (BC), I just had to own it. It was cheap, but foremost it kind of looked like a steampunk lens with the light metal stripes and the way it zooms out. And a quick look up on my phone confirmed that it was a lens from an original manufacturer. That last bit of information closed the deal.

The lens is a push/pull preset zoom lens. Preset means that the lens has two aperture rings. One is used to "preset" the aperture, the other one is used to actually stop the lens down to that aperture.
In use, you would set the aperture ring to the shooting aperture that with old viewfinders, could make for a very dim focusing screen. So, you would open the lens up with the second ring, focus and then turn it until it stops, which would put you at the preset aperture for shooting. It was a way of allowing for fast aperture setting without having to count clicks.

I hoped, being an original lens from an actual lens glass grinder company, that this would be a high quality piece of mechanics. However, they made only a few lenses, and the once with a smaller range had a good reputation, but this one was a typical early zoom, so pretty much sucked.

It does have a nice 12-blade iris, so is capable of some super soft bokeh. But that's where the good ends. The lens is wobbly with the front element being very loose. The zoom is to loose instead of being smooth. But most important, the image quality is seriously lacking. As the lens seemed to have some cloudiness in the middle when zoomed in, I thought it was probably the result from haze within the lens. And on some pictures, you can clearly see the haze (white cloud). So I thought that the softness of the lens could have the same cause. But when looking for some other, rare, reviews of this lens, the softness described as a "glow", seemed to be a common theme, so likely not a defect, but the poor quality of this lens.

So, not really a keeper, but I might hold on to it, for the "steampunk" looks, and the fact that the lens and brand is fairly rare but interesting.

Lens Specification:

Type: Push-Pull Preset Tele-Zoom
Focal Length: 100-200mm
Maximum Aperture: F5.6
Minimum Aperture: F22
Image Format: 35mm
Lens Mount: T-Mount to M42
Optics: unknown
Blades: 12
Focussing: Manual
Minimum Focus: 10ft
Filter Size: 58mm
Weight: 718g
Length: 180-235mm
Production: +/- 1970
Serial Number: 10242
Made in: Japan

More information on: Itoh Kogaku

Samples:

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1/60 sec - ISO160 - Handheld

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1/60 sec - ISO1250 - Handheld

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1/400 sec - ISO1250 - Handheld

1/400 sec - ISO3200 - Handheld

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