Soligor (Tokina) 55-135/3.5 T4 version

luisalegria · Expire: 2018-01-18

This is my latest item in the Tokina collection, in this case the short zoom in the series. This is the Soligor version in T4 interchangable mount. I now need the 105, 135/3.5 and 250/4 to complete the series, the last apparently being very rare.

This must be one of the first short zooms sold to the public by a cheap third party lens maker. I think it dates from about 1968, but versions were certainly being sold by Sears as late as 1977. Its predecessors were expensive Kilfitts, Nikons and Voigtlanders, so this was probably considered a good buy at the time.

This is the usual Tokina heavy-duty manufacture, and in fact this is a rather heavy and solid piece. It does have one curious feature, the tiny and useless built-in hood. It is of course a two-touch lens, which I much prefer. My copy is in perfect operating condition, if a bit worn.

As to performance, here we have some problems. It is pretty much unusable at f/3.5, unless for "pictorial" purposes, as the flare and aberrations are extreme, and its very soft. It becomes much more reasonable at f/5.6. Short zooms must have improved more than any category of lens after this one came out, because my Tokina two-touch 28-80 of 1979 beats the pants off this.

If I were to get into "artistic" portraits though, I would give this thing a try.

At f/3.5

At f/5.6

Various -

The bird, at f/3.5 -

cropped -

Abbazz · Joined: 23 Jun 2007 Posts: 1098 Location: Jakarta

Nice find, Luis. I must say I kinda like the rendering at f/3.5, maybe you should try some portraiture with it.

By the way, I have a Ricoh TLS which looks just like your Sears camera, but in chrome finish. That's one of my favorite M42 cameras, it's quite bulky and heavy but it feels just right in the hand. It also seems incredibly sturdy, a kind of indestructible shooting machine.

Cheers!

Abbazz

Orio · Expire: 2012-12-04

This bird seems like an old one, poor guy.

THe lens is surely on the soft side but does not seem so bad after all, I can not see CA for instance in the bird 100% crop. Only a little flare which is on the acceptable side I think.

If I had to choose a long tele, I would take a little soft one, but without CA, over a sharper one but with bad CA. I know that you can correct CA with the software, but to my eye, this seems to influence the rest of the image when the CA does not happen uniformly all over the frame (which is most of the times because typically CA is worse at the edges)

Lloydy · Expire: 2022-01-01

Old thread resurrection, I've now got one of these Soligor / Vivitar / Tokina zooms. My brother said I could have all his camera stuff, and an unmarked copy of this lens is in the box of good stuff. I've given it a quick try and there is some sharpness to be found - but you have to work at it, and it certainly isn't a lens to shoot with wide open.
I'll give it a good workout and post some pictures soon.

casualcollector · Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2013 11:51 pm Post subject:

Eager to see, Lloyd. I should give mine a day in the sun.

Andrew G. · Joined: 18 Jul 2010 Posts: 159 Location: Pennsylvania, USA

Lloydy · Expire: 2022-01-01

Here's a few shots I took earlier, all at ISO 400, no PP at all other than re-size, and probably f4.5 or 5.6, except for the power pole which was wide open.
There is sharpness in this lens, nice colour rendition - nothing special but perfectly good, but the thing that does impress me is the lack of CA / fringing. The shot of the power pole and the industrial plant would have so much fringing on a poor lens that it could be unusable, but this Soligor is very good indeed.

my brother is a good photographer, and he bought this lens new possibly 30 years ago to use on his Spotmatic ( part of his generous donation to my collection Very Happy

) and couldn't get on with it at all, he couldn't get a sharp image out of it so it went into a draw for about 29 years. I can understand why, even with the great screen of the Spotmatic and the great build quality of the lens, focusing has to be absolutely on the nail, it's as though the slightest mis focus becomes a huge mis focus.
I shall persevere with it.