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Sankor 4.5 /200
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 04, 2014 8:03 pm    Post subject: Sankor 4.5 /200 Reply with quote
Is anyone familiar with this lens? Who made it?
How good is it?
Thank you.



PostPosted: Sat Jan 04, 2014 8:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Sankor I think Smile some of the tons of little Japanese optical factory.


PostPosted: Sat Jan 04, 2014 8:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Yes, Sankyo, house brand was Sankor, also sold under many brands. Sankyo mainly made popular cine cameras and lenses. It seems SLR lenses were a small part of the business.


PostPosted: Sat Jan 04, 2014 8:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Thanks.
I wonder if it is any good? I have only found a few samples here on the forum.
I like the look of it. Rolling Eyes


PostPosted: Sat Jan 04, 2014 8:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
I dont know. I never tried that one.


PostPosted: Sat Jan 04, 2014 8:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
You can take this with a grain of salt as it is opinion only - however......
Sankor/Sankyo Kohki are also Komura I think.
Any Komura lens is exceptionally well made and usually an excellent optic.
I have not tried this particular lens, but it looks to have the usual high quality finish of Komura.
Also it is a fairly conservative design - 200mm f4.5 - so not pushing the boundaries too much.
My only Komura lens outperformed the equivalent Nikkor for what it's worth.
I would take the punt with it
OH


PostPosted: Sat Jan 04, 2014 11:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
The look and style of that lens screams old Soligor to me, but of course - who made Soligors ?


PostPosted: Sat Jan 04, 2014 11:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
That is clearly and original Sankor made lens Smile It's fairly decent too, I have some samples on the forum somewhere.


PostPosted: Sun Jan 05, 2014 12:22 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Soligor was a brand used by Allied Impex, an international distributor. They never made their own stuff, they just rebranded products from many manufacturers. There are Soligor branded lenses from pretty much every third party lens maker in Japan, and some other places too.
Soligor styles also varied, though they mostly tried to keep consistent styling within the same period. Soligor actually did very little in the "zebra" style compared to other brands.


PostPosted: Sun Jan 05, 2014 12:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Sankyo Kohki Komura was not the same as Sankyo Seiki, which I think made these lenses.
Besides there being no overlap between lenses bearing the brands, there being no Komuras that look like Sankors or vice versa, both have known company histories that are distinct.


PostPosted: Sun Jan 05, 2014 12:39 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
The general design of this lens in particular is in fact most similar to the well known Tokyo Koki/Tokina preset of the same specs. The extremely common Tokina preset line was sold under an enormous number of brands. It is obviously a close copy of the Tokina but looking in detail at specific proportions, etc shows that it is not a cosmetic variant, or that is my present opinion anyway. If I had one of these I could verify my guess by disassembling both and comparing components.
Other lenses identified as Sankyo/Sankors, which I have a couple, are definitely not variants of Komuras, Tokinas, etc.


PostPosted: Sun Jan 05, 2014 9:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Thanks for all the information. Very interesting.
Fairly descent? Okay, I will check the price of it again and see what else is available.
I am not so happy with my Pentacon 4/200.


PostPosted: Mon Mar 24, 2014 9:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
luisalegria wrote:
Sankyo Kohki Komura was not the same as Sankyo Seiki, which I think made these lenses.
Besides there being no overlap between lenses bearing the brands, there being no Komuras that look like Sankors or vice versa, both have known company histories that are distinct.


Sankyo Seiko was more noted for audio electronics and super 8mm movie cameras, SS did not make SLR or RF lenses, cine cameras and cine lenses, tape recorders and other consumer electronics related to Hi-Fi only.



SKK made these and there are enough examples of SK Komura glass posted to easily verify by image alone using an image search. I own an NPS 300mm F5.5, aka Safari, Sankor, Spiratone, Admiral, Astronar, and Sunset. Some suggest Soligor often, but the samples of Soligor 300mm F5.5's I have seen are not like the other labeled versions I own and have seen. The Soligor 400mm F5.9 looks more like a Sankor though.

I believe these 300mm F5.5's with the aperture forward design are mid to late 60's offerings, 65-69 era and it could have bankrupt the company or the company had a fire house sale...... $80 for a 300mm lens in the 60's was cheap comparatively speaking to the competition and $125 to $195 seems like what Vivitars and others brought, while Nikon's and the main brands were often $200 plus

When it comes to the SKK labeled 300mm versions I have seen newer versions marked MC and with T-mounts, on ebay and Flickr both, I have seen one that matches all the 300mm F5.5 labels I have mentioned above here and on MFlenses somewhere buried in here....

I believe Tokina made some similar looking long glass, including the Soligor versions of the 300mm and 400mm.


If you take any of those gray labeled marked lenses though, for instance NPS? There's no telling how many manufactures supplied how many varying models of NPS lenses....

I wonder if Masel Supply in NY ever had an offering? They used Telesor as a label and I can't help wonder how many other labels they have used to bring another twist.

Then there is this little known and little understood Tokina-Chinon-Who Knows Who joint efforts to produce lenses with house labels.....

Tokina Designed, Chinon made tube, and assembled by who where process?

I'm not an authority or any expert, quite capable of spreading manure and fond of doing that ...but this above is my sanitized version of my true thoughts through educated experience and over 45 years of being afflicted with G.A.S.


PostPosted: Mon Mar 24, 2014 10:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Manually wrote:

SKK made these and there are enough examples of SK Komura glass posted to easily verify by image alone using an image search.

This is definitely not Komura lens. There is a line of these zebra or all black preset lenses sold under different names like Sankor, Spiratone, Accura, Mayfair etc.: 35/2.8, 85/1.9, 100(105)/2.5(2.4), 135/2.8, 135/3.5, 200/4.5, 300/5.5, 400/5.9. 35, 105 and 135 lenses look completely different comparing to their Komura counterparts.


PostPosted: Mon Mar 24, 2014 10:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
I have this lens now. It is, as I suspected, different from the Tokina version internally.

I too have been staring at lenses for years and I have had numerous Komura, Sanyo, Tokina, etc. lenses of the 1960's in my hands.
And I have taken most of them apart.

Komuras are not in fact similar to any of the Sankyo (or its rebranded variants). I have had all the 135 preset Komuras, 1960's versions (see catalog link below), and in detail they are not one bit like the Sankyo, of which I have the 135/3.5 and 2.8 versions. I have the Komura 200/3.5 and 200/4.5 variants and ditto. On most of the rebranded types one can literally swap elements. So If I needed a rear element for a T-mount Tamron 135/2.8 and I had a Soligor (T serial number) 135/2.8, it is perfectly possible to swap them. I have done things like this. With Komuras - not so.

Also Komura never had, under its brand, a 300/5.5. They had a long running (and rather bad) 300/5. Likewise they never had a 300/4.5, which Sankyo did.

A fine resource for Komura is their late-1960's (1969?) catalog -

http://www.cameraeccentric.com/html/info/komura_1.html

Though the various lenses have some general resemblance to the typical lenses of the period from other makers, none are identical, even if one allows for varying cosmetics.

As for Sankyo -
Yes they made cine cameras. They also apparently made Sankyo branded cine lenses, and more importantly they were a big name in things like anamorphic cine lenses. And they have optical patents from at least the 1960's apparently. Thats quite a sophisticated product line for a rebrander. It was not much of a stretch to be a minor player in the third party SLR lens business, if you were already making rather sophisticated cine zooms. Much smaller companies (like Komura) survived in that niche for a couple of decades.
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