Great find. Apparently it must be one of the Zuiko prototype lenses made over the years. I've never seen any reference to it. It appears to be of the Zuiko 35-70/3.6 quality zoom, which means it should be a decent performer. Does it have the ball bearing two touch zoom feel of the 35-70/3.6?
I think you'd be better off ebay'ing it rather than using it, as some collectors may want it enough to pay some good money for it. Too bad about the front filter ring dent though.
I don't have it in my hands yet, as it is just beginning its long, three-stage journey to my house. So, I don't know how it performs or how it compares physically to others in the Zuiko line.
I checked all the Zuiko sites, too. Nothing.
I stumbled onto it while browsing through the listings at auctions.yahoo.co.jp.
Somebody else really wanted it too, but I was able to win the auction.
Thanks Gene! I'm thinking the same thing. With such a conservative zoom range I have high hopes that it'll perform up to Zuiko standards throughout the range. If so, it'll likely become a favourite for my walks in the forests and fields. On the other hand, I certainly am tempted to put some feelers out there and see if there are any collectors with an empty spot on the shelf waiting for this lens. Funny thing is, how would they even know it exists?
Either way, it'll certainly be fun to use the lens and report my findings, as well as research the story behind it.
John Hermanson replied on the Zuikoholics mailing list. He's never heard of it, but another person on the list, Mark Dapoz, wrote the following:
"A few of them have surfaced over the years, mostly in Asia. Some people
claim they're prototypes but I think it was just a very small production
run for the Asian market. Too many of these "prototypes" have shown up,
which makes me believe that they were actually sold at some time."
At this point, the scientist in me still believes that it is a prototype and I can only be certain that 5 of them were made.
Looks like I'll have it by Friday or Saturday. Several days ago, my father-in-law opened the lens package and read the printing on the front ring to my wife on the phone. I can now confirm with certainty that it is the real deal.
Someone on the Zuikoholics mailing list found a patent that is almost certainly the basis of this lens design. It dates back to 1978 and the design was by a gentleman by the name of Jihei Nakagawa, assigned to Olympus Optical Company, titled: "Very Compact Wide-Angle Zoom Lens System". The patent describes 4 "embodiments" of the design formula, 2 of which are 24-40mm f4 zooms. The 2 variants only differ slightly with respect to the main aberrations (spherical, astigmatism and distortion) and both actually look quite good with the exception of about 2.5% barrel on the wide end of both variants.
Through some other searching, I discovered that Jihei Nakagawa ended up working for Sigma, where he was (is?) a lead designer in successful modern Japanese zoom lens designs.
Oh, one other thing. I contacted Olympus Japan about this lens and they sent the following response.
"Thank you for your e-mail.
While we appreciate your interest,
there is not a record that we produced the lens you mentioned.
Therefore, please reconfirm the model name of the lens.
However, even if we find the record of the lens,
the information we are able to offer you will be a manual
for the lens.
We are unable to offer you other information.
Thank you for your understanding.
Best regards,
S. Sato
Customer Support Center
OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP. Tokyo, Japan"
I've responded (and await response to):
"Dear Sato-san,
Here is the lettering as it appears exactly on the front element retaining ring:
"OLYMPUS OM-SYSTEM ZUIKO MC AUTO-ZOOM 1:4 f=24-40mm 100005 Japan"
Attached are three photos of the lens.
I researched and found a USA patent (# 4,170,402) from 1979 that details the design of a "Very Compact Wide-angle Zoom Lens System" by Jihei Nakagawa for Olympus Optical Co., Ltd. Tokyo Japan. The patent describes 4 "embodiments" of the lens design. 2 of those embodiments are 24-40mm f4 zoom lenses.
If you have no record of this lens being produced, is there any chance at all that there was a small production run of these lenses and the records simply don't exist any more? In other words, does Olympus Japan always keep records of production lenses?
If this was not a production lens, then I can only assume it was a prototype based on the patent that I found. Based on the serial number of my lens (100005) it seems there may have been 4 other copies of this lens made. If it is a prototype, I doubt there will be a manual available.
I think you may find someone in your optical design team who would be interested in investigating internally. This really is an interesting and rare piece of Olympus history. Many Olympus users on the internet are extremely excited about it. I can only assume that there must be a few copies of this lens in some Olympus storage facility.
Maybe Maitani-san knows something about it?
Any help or information that you can provide me and the Olympus user community would be appreciated very, very much.
"Thank you for your sending us the pictures of your lens.
We checked our record again.
Unfortunately, there is no record that we put such lens on our production line.
There is no record that we sold such lens either.
Since all the people who were concerned with
the production of OM lenses have already retired,
no one knows about this lens in our company.
There are not manuals for products that were neither produced nor sold.
We are sorry that we cannot be more helpful about this matter.
Thank you for your understanding.
Best regards,
S. Sato
Customer Support Center
OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP. Tokyo, Japan"
