Advice on this Kowa Bell & Howell

[Zak Forsman]

I have an opportunity to pick up this Kowa (Bell and Howell) lens but one of the pictures shows some damage to the rear element. Just curious if any of the more experienced anamorphic shooters here could tell me if and how this might affect image quality.

Thanks!

[ken]

I think so.

Even good lens is not expensive, I would not take this risk.

[Zak Forsman]

thank you, ken.

[enny]

oh yeah that defiantly looks bad and will show in final image i have one of these kowas for bell and H rellyyyyyyy good lens paid abut 700 but its dam sharp flares and i can focus down to 3ft with yahisca 50mm ml

[raf702]

I saw this on eBay and was going to add it to my watch list. But the condition of the lens is very iffy

[Andrew Reid]

The rainbow is separation, the glued elements coming apart.

Avoid that one

[valid]

I had one which looked much better (less worse?) than that, but even then when I disassembled it I could see that the rear elements were practically falling apart from each other.

In theory it's fixable, you just need to decement the separating elements, and then recement them together. Up to you if you want to do it ;-) I personally decided that it wasn't worth the ball-ache and just kept mine for spares

 

PS in practice the separation will appear as patches of softness in the image. Not drastic, but definitely not a perfect image.