Soligor (Tokina?) 350/5.6 T-mount preset

[luisalegria]

Yet another old preset, purchased for the usual nominal price from ebay. This one looks like it was used hard -







I think it might be a Tokina, there are certainly Tokina lenses from the old preset lens series that were sold as Soligors, and this lens has many points of style that are like that old Tokina series, many construction details are identical, down to the placement of screw holes in the diaphragm mechanism, the style of the lettering, etc. The only detail thats off is the focus indicator mark is a circle instead of the usual triangle.

So I'm not certain if it is actually made by Tokyo Koki/Tokina, but if it isn't someone copied the mechanism very closely.

Soligor (Allied Impex) had great negotiating power in those days (1960's), as it was the biggest third-party lens distributor. Apparently it was able to arrange for several vendors to make what it considered a complete range of prime lenses, including odd sizes like 250mm, 350mm and 450mm. So now one can find several styles of each of these odd focal lengths in the Soligor brand, each from a different manufacturer, all of whom probably made them only for Soligor.

Its the usual simple design with the helical in front of the diaphragm and rotating front elements. It shares the same fault as the other Tokina lenses of this type in that it has a very long minimum focus, 25ft/8m in this case. Otherwise its the usual good quality, solid construction for third-party Japanese lenses from the 1960's. Other than scratches and wear this lens is perfectly functional, which is common for that Tokina line. Unlike some other makes the helical and diaphragm seldom go wrong in these. The filter size is 72mm. It probably came with a dedicated hood, but I don't have that, though going by what I know these were usually inadequate. These things are easily lost.

Performance is excellent. This lens is sharp at f/5.6, it doesn't suffer from flare, it can shoot backlit with no issues.

Some shots with extension rings - a necessity with this lens.

















The bird -



crop -

[ManualFocus-G]

Nice shots. Again!

I believe I have the same lens with the dot. Mine doesn't focus to infinity which is weird...

[Attila]

Nice , really nice!

[hinnerker]

Great Performance for an old 3rd party lens..... whow.
Will have a look on that lens..

greetz
Hinnerker

[fatdeeman]

The quality looks great!

I have a newer version of this lens and it disappoints optically, I keep meaning to sell it on and try and get an older version as they seem to perform much better.

[Big Dawg]

I had one several years ago almost exactly like that in a 350mm version as well. It had a CASPECO brand on it for Camera Specialty Company.I wonder if they are the same? Really nice photos there. Sharp with very good color and contrast.

[luisalegria]

Hi Ed,

The old preset Tokinas were also sold under the Caspeco brand, I have one of the 200/4.5's

So your old 350 might certainly have been on of these.

[luisalegria]

Hi Fatdeeman,

I think I know the series you mean - its the presets with the chrome ring and the satin-finish or flat paint ?

I have had no luck with these too. I have had a couple that were very poor.

[ManualFocus-G]

I had one of those presets with the silver flash, a 200/4.5, I thought it looked lovely but the images produced were soft and low resolution. The newer automatic lenses looking much the same are of far higher quality.

[fatdeeman]

[luisalegria]

Wow ! Thats a great shot !

Thats with one of the old Soligors ?
You were on a hill looking down ?

[fatdeeman]

No that's with the newer one, it looks a lot less impressive as a 100% crop!

I live in a valley hence the backdrop is a hill/mountain so it looks like I was higher up than I really was....

[fatdeeman]

I have managed to get hold of one of those models now, it's much better wide open than the later version is at F/8!

It came with a metal hood too, I'll make a post about it when I have some good weather!

[marcusBMG]

My example of this lens has a Cunor nameplate.



Is it a tokina? The tripod ring is distinctively tokina like, the lens has marked similarities with eg the tokina made soligor 400mm f6.3, the tokina made 300mm f5.5's (soligor vivitar etc). And it has the faux 47mm t-mount that is associated essentially exclusively with a few tokina made lenses from the 1960's like the "stovepipe" tokyo koki and innumerable other marques 400mm f6.3. But I would have expected a tokina origin to have left examples under tokina/tokyo koki nameplates, and internet searches show nothing. Only soligor mainly, plus the odd one under other names like mine.
I'll do a comparison with the tamron made 350mm f5.6 which I also have.

[marcusBMG]

I have now done some test pics.
The test pics of the musselmens raft were inconclusive due to inconsistencies, suffice to say results were similar. And both lenses took similar pics of the jackdaws and gulls on Conwy quayside (cunor top, samsung NX20, f11 same pp - contrast bumped and resized images sharpened):


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Current state of play: the tamron made soligor is edging it, slightly better resolution IMO but most specifically because of it's much superior close focus: 3.5mm approx vs 6.6m measured mfd. However I did manage to reduce that to ~4m by unscrewing the stop screw on the focus sleeve on the Cunor.

[marcusBMG]

Using my own suggested trick of unscrewing the stop screw on the focus sleeve to get closer focus enabled me to get some better pics of the gulls, and some more pics of the jackdaws. These at f8 I think.


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Overall a good lens IMO.

[Lloydy]

Nothing wrong with that, great images.