Eh, apertures are overrated anyway!
I think the Photosniper concept is a very practical solution for photo stabilization, great for shooting birds. Also completely unacceptable for social events.
Got the final piece I needed to take out my other projector lens on Saturday (also featured in the menagerie of @fiveseven
) My copy is labeled OKP-1-100-1, but later copies say 35KP-1.8/100. They are the same lens, with a 6-lens/4-group Biotar-based optical formula. They were made at BelOMO in Minsk, Belarus (the plant is still operational today).
I'm surprised at how even the rendering is across the frame, but maybe I shouldn't be. It was designed to project 35mm slides onto a flat wall, after all. It's much more consistent across the frame than the Helios lenses it's based on. I guess the extreme field curvature and swirly bokeh of those lenses was more of an aesthetic choice by the designers than a technical limitation.
The whole setup with added helicoid and stuff is more than 1kg. It's a very thick aluminum tube, and the whole thing is stuffed with glass. But add an adjustable aperture, and you'd have a very practical, well-rounded lens.