Tamron made soligor 250mm f4.5 - better than SP 300mm?

marcusBMG · Joined: 07 Dec 2012 Posts: 1305 Location: Conwy N Wales

I am impressed with my newly acquired tamron made (T-xxxxx serial) soligor 250mm f4.5.

It's a bit short for birding, used at close to the MFD of 4.5m I am cropping pics of small birds like finches down to 1500px or less. But if the subject is a bit a larger like a squirrel....

(yes I know I missed focus - hey the tail is sharp!!!)

Or a pigeon

I did some side by side comparison shots with a 300mm tamron SP 54B. And I have to say I think the old preset 250mm is sharper, and tends to have less fringing. Click on the pics to see the full sized (2.4MB and 3.3MB) and judge for yourself. 250mm top pic, f5.6, K5, bean bag on a wall, 2 secs timer. Mansion is ?1/4 + mile away. These are pp'ed but with almost the same settings except for more CA suppression on the second 54B pic.

Previous threads:
http://forum.mflenses.com/pics-taken-with-soligor-250mm-4-5-m-42-t70094,highlight,%2B250mm.html
http://forum.mflenses.com/soligor-tokina-250-4-5-t-mount-t9790,highlight,%2B250mm.html

Lloydy · Expire: 2022-01-01

I recently got the Tamron Twin Tele 135 - 225 which looks to be of similar age and design and I'm very impressed with it. It's way better than I hoped for and better than a lot of far newer lenses I've got.

guardian · Joined: 18 Mar 2009 Posts: 1749

Appears lens might be offered for sale now in m42 in Canada:

Click here to see on Ebay

Nordentro · Expire: 2015-01-29

Of all the Soligor Tele lenses, this is my favorite too...
http://manuellfokus.no/soligor-250mm-f4-5/

marcusBMG · Joined: 07 Dec 2012 Posts: 1305 Location: Conwy N Wales

I took the lens apart to relube the focus. Proved to be a more ticklish operation than on the other tamron presets - this has a double helicoid. The focus is in front of the iris and aperture rings and moves the whole optical assembly forward, while on the other lenses the focus is at the front of the lens and varies the separation of the 2 optical groups. I suspect i didn't get the re-engagement of the helicoid in exactly the right place, but in any case it focusses to infinity, and I have removed the stop screw which allows me to focus to less than 3m instead of 4.5m.
Tested this out on the daffs with my Lumix G1. On apsc I'll probably want an extension tube as well. f8, f4.5.