Soligor 400mm f/6.3, much better than I thought

[Ivan Lee]

Sorry for the boring images, but that's what I could shot from my window...lol

I thought the results are interesting... the gain in resolution is very minor closing down, and there is less CA wide open than at f/8 or f/11...
Also the contrast is very low... but for a lens that cost me 75 bucks...I think I'm more than satisfied

Wide Open f/6.3

http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/985/p1030454i.jpg

f/8

http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/4980/p1030455.jpg

f/11

http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/7688/p1030456q.jpg

[Olivier]

Hello Ivan.

Is it the same as this one ?


This is the first MF lens I got.

I was quite surprised too, even if we can't say it's exceptional.

[Ivan Lee]

yeah! that's the same one!

Now I'll try to shoot some portraits with it lol

[Olivier]

If you don't mind,
here are some sample shots I took with it :

1- wide open


2- stopped down


3- another "boring shot" wide open


4- stopped down


5- some roses


6- some other roses


I'm waiting for uour portraits with this "long gun". I think it's worth it.
But maybe you'll need some extension tubes to shorten the minimum focusing range.

[Ivan Lee]

thanks for the samples!

yeah, just looked at the lens... the MFD is something like 7 meters... lol!

[cooltouch]

Low contrast is easy to fix in PP, but sharpness isn't.

The images look to have good sharpness, and the contrast really doesn't look too bad at all.

One of the biggest drawbacks with these preset refractor telephotos is their minimum focusing distance. Of course, the easiest way to get around this problem is to have a set of extension tubes handy.

[stevemark]

I recently bought exactly the same lens as shown above, for a mere CHF (USD/EUR) 10.--. My expectations were very low, but i had to find that the Soligor is obviously sharper in the center than the Minolta MD 5.6/400mm APO. What a surprise!

At the borders, of course, the Minolta APO is clearly superior (less CA).

All testing was made using the 24MP Full Frame Sony A7II on a sturdy tripod.

Stephan

[iangreenhalgh1]

A lot of old long lenses are sharp in the centre, very simple lens designs are easy to make.

However, their weakness is in other areas, usually contrast is low, colours washed out and plenty of CA. With modern PP you can fix most of these things though.

[Lloydy]

Maybe not the best picture to show off the Soligor 400 / 6.3, which isn't a bad lens at all. This is a much processed 8 image stitch taken with the Soligor on a NEX5 - on a tripod. The salmon nets were probably a mile away.

[marcusBMG]

Yep IMO that's the best soligor 400mm - it's a rebadged/slightly redesigned tokina rmc 400mm 6.3. Also found as a vivitar T4 mount.
I've bought and sold a good few of these vintage 400mm's now and I rank them as follows:
1. tamron 400mm f6.9
2. tokina rmc 400mm f6.3 (OP's)
3. tokyo koki 400mm - the 1960's vintage stovepipe shape, good when good but I have had a couple of dogs too.
4. soligor "chrome eared" 400mm 6.3 (usually 9xxx serial but also KAxxx and other) - invariably softer than 1-3, specifically wide open.
5. generics (all those paragon/prinzgalaxy etc etc etc NB some of them are in fact rebadged no's 2, 3), on average, the best of the generics are actually competitive in quality.

Pic 1 is with a cfd mount tokina rmc own label, lumix G1, pic 2 with a hanimex badged version, also G1.