Centon — budget manual-focus 28-70mm f/3.5-4.5 standard zoom, Jessops house brand
Centon was the house brand used by UK retailer Jessops for cameras and lenses through the 1980s and 1990s. The 28-70mm f/3.5-4.5 was a standard-range zoom for buyers of Jessops-badged SLR outfits, likely sourced from a Japanese third-party supplier and relabelled for the UK market.
The lens covers 28-70mm on a single ring, with a variable maximum aperture of f/3.5 at the wide end narrowing to f/4.5 at 70mm, focusing manually via a conventional rotating barrel typical of consumer zooms of its generation. It was offered across several manual-focus SLR mounts to suit whatever body a customer already owned.
Rendering favours convenience over refinement: centre sharpness is adequate stopped down but softens toward the edges and long end, with modest contrast and flare control next to first-party lenses. Its appeal was covering wide-to-short-tele in one lens for buyers upgrading from a fixed 50mm kit optic.
Centon lenses circulate cheaply in the UK used market, often paired with Centon DF-300 or K100 bodies. Work the zoom and aperture rings for grit, check the rear element for haze, and confirm the specific mount before buying, since Centon parts were sold across several fittings.