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Explore the world of vintage lenses through repair notes, real test shots, and detailed archive threads packed with images.

Explore the world of vintage lenses through repair notes, real test shots, and detailed archive threads packed with images.
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testing my lenses - part 68 - Pentacon 29mm/2.8
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Looks good to my eye.


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To me also, nice samples from a good lens.


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Pentacon's colors are there.

Good resolution power. Nice contrast for me.

Enjoy!!!

Rino.


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one of the lenses with acceptable price/performancce relation

how much is and where to buy the (barn) door handle in pic 5 ?


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der einrahmer wrote:
one of the lenses with acceptable price/performancce relation

how much is and where to buy the (barn) door handle in pic 5 ?

Laughing

I read mixed things about this lens.
It seems you have a good copy. Smile

I have to test it again...


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Olivier wrote:
der einrahmer wrote:
one of the lenses with acceptable price/performancce relation

how much is and where to buy the (barn) door handle in pic 5 ?

Laughing

I read mixed things about this lens.
It seems you have a good copy. Smile

I have to test it again...


I got rid of my copy very quick : unsharp, weird "doubled" bokeh. I'm surprised ! (in a good way)


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2nd photo is really good!


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All samples are really nice.
i should get one of those lenses:)


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nice images, very sharp and beautiful colors the first one especially. Lovely circular abstraction when the lens is wide open on the rose image, outstanding.

Pozdrav iz Istre, WolverineX.


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Nice samples! It is clear that you have a good one.
I have two. The first one had an issue with the adapter, I thought at first, no sharp pictures at infinity. So more testing with other adapter and close focus pictures. Colors OK, contrast soso, and never a sharp pic. On a market I couldn't stay away from another one for € 3. And that one is a really good lens!
Both look in identical condition. I need the little price tag, still sitting on the last one, to know which one is the good. So you need some luck in purchasing that lens.


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der einrahmer wrote:

how much is and where to buy the (barn) door handle in pic 5 ?


door handle? that's a cat climbing the fence


my copy of this lens has a big scratch on the coating of the front element


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rutrem wrote:


Pozdrav iz Istre, WolverineX.


Pozdrav


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This quality control issue is really.. an issue! I loved this pics, even though you didn't mentioned any post-processing other than conversion but having in mind that I may be betting my money on a bad copy in some auction.. bah.


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The Pentacon 29/2.8 is not a bad lens as reputation.
I got mine recently. The lens was in bad shape, scratch, dirt and lose base. After cleaning and tighten all screws i can find, still cant do anything about minor scratches, the lens turns out pretty good, better than several 28/2.8 i have.


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Unfortunately I've had a couple of copies pass through my hands and neither performed very well, but after looking at these and reading the above comments I'll track another one down to see if that's any better than the previous ones I've owned. Thanks for sharing Very Happy


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Your's look like a nice copy. I find my on the soft side.


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After cleaning, tighten all screws, incl front element, the lens turns out to be a completely different.

It has a different blur rending on closer out-of-focus area. For longer distance (3+ meters) wide open and one click down is not as sharp as those sharpest, still a bit soft, and I found it difficult to have correct focus at near infinity. Blur rending from wide open to f8 is insignificant.

Posted some sample images on my picasa.


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new samples using E-M5









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WolverineX wrote:
new samples using E-M5









What version do you have?
Pentacon 29mm auto multi coating?


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Mojtabaa wrote:


What version do you have?
Pentacon 29mm auto multi coating?


yes


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Using it on m43 it will do much better than FF, on FF i would call it more a character lens ,for long distance landscape, my copy is just to soft


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Yep and a lot of copy variation. Mine is decentered a bit. But nice for close up

Chainkeh by The lens profile, on Flickr


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It's just not a very good lens due to having a lot of field curvature, so unless you use it stopped down several stops, or on a small frame camera, or don't have any part of the subject in the margins of the frame, then it works okay. There are a lot of much better 28s out there though.


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So, it seems that despite being a wide lens, it's better for macro or close distance photography rather than landscape or even street photography🤔

Regarding sharpness, field curvature and overall performance is Mir 1b better than this lens?