Pekka Buttler, 05/2025
Quick summary
For a while in the 50s and 60s, ISCO Göttingen was a prominent maker of interchangeable lenses for Exakta and M42 systems. The company’s main markets were the domestic (West) German market as well as the US market.
Alike many West German lens manufacturers, also ISCO rose from the ruins of the 2nd World War, made a splash with an innovative line of products, to then gradually be squeezed out of the market.
History of ISCO Göttingen
ISCO Göttingen was originally founded in 1936 as Jos. Schneider & Co., Optische Werke, Göttingen. As such it was an offshoot of Schneider-Kreuznach, targeted specifically at manufacturing optics in support of the late 30s German re-armament effort. During its first decade (1936–1945) the company acted as the primary supplier of aerial reconnaissance cameras for the German Luftwaffe. While these Aerial reconnaissance lenses carried the name “Schneider-Göttingen” (in contrast to “Schneider-Kreuznach), it seems the factory/company was informally referred to as ‘ISCO’ which is the easier pronounced version of ‘JSCO’ (which would have been a contraction of “Jos. Schneider & CO“)
Owing to the factory’s heavy involvement with military projects, it is no surprise that as soon as the war ended the Allied forces confiscated and dismantled the factory. Also the use of the name ISCO was banned, leading to that immediate postwar civilian production was sold under the name “Optische Werke Göttingen” (Optical works Göttingen). It was only in 1953, with the German consumer optics industry again gathering speed, that production continued under the ISCO Göttingen name. From now on the company’s focus was on optics for cameras and projectors – both still and cinema.
The typical lens geek knows ISCO Göttingen for one thing especially: With the 1958 introduction of the 24mm f/4 Westrogon, ISCO did hold the “manufacturer of the widest SLR lens” title for a period of time, even though that innovation seem to not have been entirely home-grown1.
For most of the postwar decades, ISCO was a mid-tier marque: An interchangeable standard lens for your camera from ISCO would be priced above the bulk manufacturers (e.g. Staeble) but below the top tier (e.g. Zeiss). This however applied only to “ordinary” lenses, and it is fair to say that ISCO’s specialty were non-ordinary lenses: Extreme wide-angle lenses, anamorphic lenses etc. ISCO even pioneered lenses that had light meters (an easier way to add a light meter to a camera that did not have one).
However, ISCO did suffer tough competition. A mid-tier strategy is never easy to pull off (your products are too expensive for those who need to buy cheap; for those who can afford quality products, yours will never be the first choice), especially not as Japanese industry was increasing its impact on the European and American markets (ISCO’s main markets). In the mid 60s ISCO tried to turn its fortunes around by being at the forefront of adopting synthetic materials as basis for lens housings (in the hope of increasing profitability). Problematically the paying customer felt even less inclined to pay a premium for ISCO lenses thereafter.
In the beginning of the 1970s ISCO withdrew from manufacturing SLR lenses, but continued with cinematic, projection and specialty optics. After some ups and downs around the millennium ISCO was reintegrated into Schneider-Kreuznach and continues manufacturing precision optics today under the name ISK Optics GmbH.
ISCO lens names:
Alike most German companies, ISCO had the habit of giving its lenses names that echoed the lens’ design or use-case. Some of the typical ISCO lens names are:
- Isco-Mat (Series of lenses for on-lens light meters)
- Isconar (50, 80, 100 and 135 mm; triplets)
- Iscorama (anamorphic lenses)
- Iscotar (50/2.8; triplet)
- Tele-Iscaron (135/2.8, 180/2.8; bright tele lenses)
- Tele-Westanar (135/3.5, 180/4, 400/4.5; classic tele designs)
- Westagon (50/2; 6-element double-Gauss)
- Westanar (50/2.8, 85/2.8 135/3.5, 150/4.5, 180/4.5 ; Tessar-type designs)
- Westar (50/3.5, 50/2.8, 100/4.5; triplet designs)
- Westrocolor (50/1.9; 6-element double-Gauss)
- Westrogon (24/4, 8-element retrofocus)
- Westromat (35/2.8, 50/1.9, 135/3.5, auto-aperture variants of the Westron 35/2.8, Westrocolor 50/1.9 and Tele-Westanar 135&/3.5)
- Westron (28/4, 35/2.8, 35/3,5; 4–7 element retrofocus designs)