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First couple of shots with Vivitar S1 28mm f/1.9
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 23, 2015 5:56 am    Post subject: First couple of shots with Vivitar S1 28mm f/1.9 Reply with quote

I got my mitts on a Vivitar Series 1 28mm f/1.9 VMC and today I got a chance to play with it. First impressions are: it's a lot of fun, not extremely sharp but good enough, about 30cm of MFD is great, and the result (when shooting close and wide open) is some smooth bokeh with character (I can't put my finger on why, but to me the bokeh of this lens looks vintage). Build seems pretty solid.





Both photos were taken wide open at MFD with a Nikon D700 and are post-processed and obviously cropped for composition. The lens produces a very visible vignetting wide open that I had to correct in post.


Last edited by invisible on Sat Feb 28, 2015 12:48 pm; edited 1 time in total


PostPosted: Mon Feb 23, 2015 8:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nice!
Am interested to see some shots stopped down 1?


PostPosted: Mon Feb 23, 2015 10:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

looks like a viable alternative to the Nikkor 28mm f2 AIS that I have. It also doesn't have the smoothest bokeh (none of these older wide angles seem to) but it does have character. The OOF highlights are also stretched radially (the opposite of swirly bokeh)


PostPosted: Mon Feb 23, 2015 10:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Close it down a stop or two and this one is a cracker Smile


PostPosted: Mon Feb 23, 2015 11:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

ManualFocus-G wrote:
Close it down a stop or two and this one is a cracker Smile


There are plenty of decent 28mm f2.8 lenses, these lenses have to work wide open to earn their premium. They can go well over £100


PostPosted: Mon Feb 23, 2015 3:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Basilisk wrote:
ManualFocus-G wrote:
Close it down a stop or two and this one is a cracker Smile


There are plenty of decent 28mm f2.8 lenses, these lenses have to work wide open to earn their premium. They can go well over £100


But they don't, they're old lenses! Might be OK on film for small prints, but all the fast and wide Vivitars are glowy wide open in my experience. My Fujinon 18/2 is far, far superior.


PostPosted: Mon Feb 23, 2015 3:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

ManualFocus-G wrote:
Basilisk wrote:
ManualFocus-G wrote:
Close it down a stop or two and this one is a cracker Smile


There are plenty of decent 28mm f2.8 lenses, these lenses have to work wide open to earn their premium. They can go well over £100


But they don't, they're old lenses! Might be OK on film for small prints, but all the fast and wide Vivitars are glowy wide open in my experience. My Fujinon 18/2 is far, far superior.



The Close Focus 2/28 is essentially as fast and is razor sharp and not "glowy" at wide open.
http://forum.mflenses.com/vivitar-28mm-f2-0-mc-close-focus-on-nex-5n-t61982,highlight,%2Bclose+%2Bfocus.html


PostPosted: Mon Feb 23, 2015 3:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

No legacy wide angle was designed to give it's best wide open. The cheaper third party ones usually need to be stopped down to f5.6 to achieve their best in sharpness terms. Many have good central performance with poor edges due to field curvature, which means they work better on a crop format than full frame. For instance, I have a Kowa 2.8/28 that is very sharp centrally at all apertures, but on FF, the corners, even at f8, never come close to reaching that level, so I only use it on APS-C.

The Komine/Vivitar 2/28 DOES glow wide open, due to uncorrected spherical aberration, but it is better in this regard than the Kiron/Vivitar version which is low contrast and soft wide open, largely due to uncorrected SA and needs to be closed to f4 to cure that.

The 2.8/28 Komina Close Focus was also sold under a few other brands other than Vivitar, it's often seen as an X-Kominar or X-Fujinar and I happen to still have the X-Fujinar version, it was the budget offering and the X-Fujinon EBC 3.5/28 is much better, especially in infinity performance and coatings. I prefer the Tokina RMC/Hoya HMC 2.8/28 to the Komine, much better build quality, but either is a good budget 28mm option. Still, I'd pick a major maker's alternative anytime such as the Minolta Rokkor 3.5/28, Konica Hexanon 3.5/28, Mamiya SX 2.8/28 and Nikkor AI-S 2.8/28, they are all a step up from the better third party stuff like the Komine and Tokina.

28mm is a nice focal length on APS-C, but really good performing legacy 28s are not easy to find, the modern Sigma DN 30mm is a far better lens for APS-C users and is really cheap.


PostPosted: Tue Feb 24, 2015 11:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

BeardsAreBest wrote:
Nice!
Am interested to see some shots stopped down 1?

Unfortunately not. I've only tried it wide open so far.

woodrim wrote:
The Close Focus 2/28 is essentially as fast and is razor sharp and not "glowy" at wide open.

I also have the Vivitar 28/2 Close Focus (Komine version), and I don't find it glowy wide open. It is sharper wide open than the f/1.9 though, but I like the bokeh of the f/1.9 better (which is the reason why I bought it). I will likely keep just one of them – have to decide if I prioritize the bokeh or the sharpness. If the f/1.9 is sharp stopped down, then it'll probably be the one I keep.

But the f/1.9 is not really that glowy wide open – the numbering on the pool balls was not all that sharp to begin with. Here's a photo straight out of the camera, shot at f/1.9 (RAW converted to jpeg, no processing at all).



And a crop of the same photo:


PostPosted: Wed Feb 25, 2015 1:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I love this 28 1.9 lens, I was lucky to find one that needed some cleaning and paid £30 for it.

Generally I don't use a lens wide open, I usually go for one stop down. But starting with a fast lens that still makes for a fast aperture. And I find this Vivitar is excellent stopped down one. It's not poor wide open though.

This was at 2.8. I like the bokeh, it's not fussy.


PostPosted: Wed Feb 25, 2015 12:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

iangreenhalgh1 wrote:
No legacy wide angle was designed to give it's best wide open. The cheaper third party ones usually need to be stopped down to f5.6 to achieve their best in sharpness terms. Many have good central performance with poor edges due to field curvature, which means they work better on a crop format than full frame. For instance, I have a Kowa 2.8/28 that is very sharp centrally at all apertures, but on FF, the corners, even at f8, never come close to reaching that level, so I only use it on APS-C.

The Komine/Vivitar 2/28 DOES glow wide open, due to uncorrected spherical aberration, but it is better in this regard than the Kiron/Vivitar version which is low contrast and soft wide open, largely due to uncorrected SA and needs to be closed to f4 to cure that.

The 2.8/28 Komina Close Focus was also sold under a few other brands other than Vivitar, it's often seen as an X-Kominar or X-Fujinar and I happen to still have the X-Fujinar version, it was the budget offering and the X-Fujinon EBC 3.5/28 is much better, especially in infinity performance and coatings. I prefer the Tokina RMC/Hoya HMC 2.8/28 to the Komine, much better build quality, but either is a good budget 28mm option. Still, I'd pick a major maker's alternative anytime such as the Minolta Rokkor 3.5/28, Konica Hexanon 3.5/28, Mamiya SX 2.8/28 and Nikkor AI-S 2.8/28, they are all a step up from the better third party stuff like the Komine and Tokina.

28mm is a nice focal length on APS-C, but really good performing legacy 28s are not easy to find, the modern Sigma DN 30mm is a far better lens for APS-C users and is really cheap.


My Nikkor 28mm f2 AIS is perfectly capable of sharpness wide open. I haven't tested flat field corner sharpness at f2 - I don't use this lens for astrophotography - but it is certainly capable of crispiness at f2. Look at the individual hairs that are in focus in this shot (with admittedly very shallow DOF)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/42858104@N08/14114997846/sizes/l


PostPosted: Thu Feb 26, 2015 10:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Lloydy wrote:
I love this 28 1.9 lens, I was lucky to find one that needed some cleaning and paid £30 for it.

Generally I don't use a lens wide open, I usually go for one stop down. But starting with a fast lens that still makes for a fast aperture. And I find this Vivitar is excellent stopped down one. It's not poor wide open though.

This was at 2.8. I like the bokeh, it's not fussy.

Yeah, I absolutely love the character of that bokeh. Your image looks pretty sharp, and I hope my copy of the lens is as sharp as yours.

One of these days I'll do a quick comparison of the 28/1.9 vs. the Vivitar 28/2 (Komine).


PostPosted: Thu Feb 26, 2015 11:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I just found these close ups, something this lens does very well. The DoF is thin when it's opened up though.

A bit of froggy love. Laughing


and a backlit leaf.


PostPosted: Thu Feb 26, 2015 11:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I remember for my first shoots with this lens, it was very pleasant experience! Smile congrats!!