Vivitar Series 1 200mm f/3.0 M42

[TrueLoveOne]

I have never been much of a tele-shooter. But using the Minolta QF 200mm made me curious about some more telelenses.

Last week i got my hands on a near mint Vivitar Series 1 200mm f/3.0. It was the aperture which made me buy it in the end, so close to f/2.8, but what would it be like?

This S1 lens has a 28 serial and has the M42 mount, pictures were taken on Sony A7, some PP was applied, no sharpening.

Absolutely a nice lens, well usable wide open as well! A bit heavy but good to handle, very smooth focus and a built-in hood, which i did not use.

First 2 shots are wide open, in the crop of the second (Finn) you can see some of the CA it produces when wide open.

Thanks for looking, cheers, René!

1. f/3
Look! by René Maly, on Flickr

2. crop of the above
Crop of "Look!" by René Maly, on Flickr

3. f/3 long distance
Finn by René Maly, on Flickr

4. crop of the above
Crop of "Finn" by René Maly, on Flickr

5. f/5.6
Exploring by René Maly, on Flickr

6. f/8
Zeepiertje by René Maly, on Flickr

[bychance]

I have the uncommon auto focus F3.5 version of this lens in FD mount and not really used it in anger yet, but looking at those shots, I think it's going to get an outing soon.

[fwcetus]

[fwcetus]

[Lloydy]

It looks very good indeed, how does it compare to the Rokkor?

[bychance]

Yes, that's the one, mine is a Komine, serial number starts 28

[woodrim]

I believe this has been my most used lens. Here are two from recent weeks...

[TrueLoveOne]

Thanks all!

[VLR]

[fwcetus]

Here's a (reduced-size) scan of the VS1 200/3 spec sheet -

And here's a link to the full-size VS1 200/3 scan - http://www.allgeektome.com/pentax/v2003/specsheet.jpg

For anyone interested, here's a (reduced-size) scan of the sibling VS1 135/2.3 spec sheet -

And here's a link to the full-size VS1 135/2.3 scan - http://www.allgeektome.com/pentax/v13523/specsheet.jpg

[Scans are courtesy of "boggy".]

[ZuikosHexanonsandVivitars]

Recently I tested my Olympus Zuiko 180mm f2.8 MC and was slightly disappointed due to its tendency to fringing and CA´s. In the last months there were several discussions ongoing here about chromatic imperfections of vintage tele lenses, and the only other lens I had to compare to the Zuiko is this Vivitar Series 1 200mm f3.0. I have this lens in K/AR mount probably since 1989. I used it until late ´91 when I changed to Olympus and since then it was stored until last year when I got the Alpha.

There are already some other threads on MFL about this lens, the one here started from woodrim shows really great images taken with it.
http://forum.mflenses.com/vivitar-200mm-series-1-t27928.html

So in the light of recent discussion here concerning problematic optical characteristics of most 70s and 80s tele lenses, I wanted to concentrate on situations less favorable for the lens and see what it can do when thrown against harsh backlight and high contrast.
I converted all the following photos from raw, only switching off noise reduction and probably adjust brightness up or down for 1/3 EV. Contrast, sharpness and color is all to the Vivitar, not to my doing.

This first motive I also did with the 180mm Zuiko wide open in a previous test and got heavy purple fringing and yellow/green CAs. They´re almost nonexistent with the Vivitar, except for a purple hue on the yellow garden hose and the lowest branch of the pine tree to the left. Below the link leads to that Zuiko test, it´s images 3, 4 and 5 I mean.
http://forum.mflenses.com/olympus-zuiko-180mm-f2-8-mc-t84389.html

#1 f3, ISO 100, 1/400s


The following three images were taken in backlight and near closest focus distance. Notice there´s finally a some purple if you tease the lens this way. They also give an impression about the bokeh rendering of the Vivitar with background highlights.

Distance to object about 1.4m
#2 f3, ISO 100, 1/160s.


The image below is a 100% crop taken from an image similar to the one above.
#3 f3, ISO 100, 1/160s


100% crop in high contrast situation. Due to the magnification, fringing is clearly visible. Notable bubble bokeh.
#4 f3, ISO 100, 1/200s



The following motive was taken four times closing down the aperture from f3 to f4 to f5.6 to f8 and cropped to 100% from the center of the original image.

Wide open and close to infinity, the lens is a bit soft. Dark areas in the stone wall appear with a slight purple hue.
#5 f3, ISO 100, 1/3200s


Closed down to f4, sharpness increases considerably, the purple hue in dark areas is almost gone.
#6 f4, ISO 100, 1/2000s


Further closed down it closes in on maximum IQ and dark areas in the stone wall are black as they´re supposed to be.
#7 f5.6, ISO 100, 1/1000s


f8 appears to give the maximum image quality. I took one more image with f11 but it has motion blur and therefore useless to show it here.
#8 f8, ISO 100, 1/640s


Vignetting is not very pronounced even wide open. The image below is one of the few where it´s visible.
#9 f3, ISO 100, 1/3200s


Although the rendering power wide open seems to be optimized for close distance, it´s still very acceptable near infinity. It you would scrutinize a 100% crop, you´d see decent purple shadows under the white blossoms.
#10 f3, ISO 100, 1/400s


The last two were once more taken wide open, handheld and close to minimum focus distance. It´s a gamble to keep the distance to the object with that thin DOF, but manageable. The dim light helped a lot in that situation to achieve good contrast and color. And I very much like what it does with the OOF areas here.
#11 f3, ISO 100, 1/500s


#12 f3, ISO 100, 1/320s


Well, I´m really happy to have this lens. I remember how I came to it - a friend had a photographer shop in the 80s and was a Konica fan. He must have considered Vivitar inferior compared to his many Hexanons and gave it away for a pittance, together with the 135mm f2.3 and the 90-180mm f4.5. Now, Hexanons were and certainly still are top-notch stuff, but he was clearly wrong about the Series 1, and 35 years after that purchase I only start to comprehend how lucky I was back then.

[D1N0]

Purple fringing can be pretty bad with this lens. Here on the out of focus person and the grille of the car. Shot at F8

At the market (Candid theme) by The lens profile, on Flickr

[John Shriver]

I have this lens in K-mount. I also had spherochromaticism issues (fringing on out-of-focus edges).
I enjoyed the very close focusing. But then I got the Pentax-A 200/2.8, and fell in love with how much better it is.
I replaced the missing rubber focusing collar with Griptac.