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Aetna (Old Tamron) 300/5.6 preset t-mount
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PostPosted: Tue Dec 09, 2008 2:25 am    Post subject: Aetna (Old Tamron) 300/5.6 preset t-mount Reply with quote

This is a Tamron model 670, sold under the Aetna "Rokunar" trademark.



http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ja&u=http://www.tamron.co.jp/data/old-lens/olm300f5_6.htm

Some early Tamrons were sold under the Aetna brand, I think sometime after the Taika trademarks started appearing as Aetnas. Since Taika also sold early Tamrons, I think there was some relationship there. This model Tamron is actually rather hard to find, I have only seen two in a year of hunting for early Tamrons. Some other makers seem to have copied the design (I have a "Rubica" thats a dead ringer for this), but these are not that common either. There was less demand for a 300mm "wundertute" than for a 400mm it seems.

Like many of the early Tamrons, this one is nicely but very simply made, finished in the typical gloss enamel. It has the usual Japanese double aperture rings, in this case rather stiff unfortunately. It has a rather close minimum focus of about 8ft/2.5m (less than stated in the Tamron site), at least of its type and age. And unlike many later 300mm's in its class, it is extremely light.

Performance is acceptable, but not spectacular. Its not as sharp as some other cheap 300mm's at f/5.6, but it does get sharp at f/8. It stayed on my camera for the last five days though because of the close focus and light weight, and it seems to hit focus quite easily. Its a nice lens to use.

I screwed up on some of these because I inadvertently set the camera to ISO 800 one day.



















The bird -



Crop -



PostPosted: Sun Apr 02, 2017 8:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Resurrecting this thread because I have now acquired one of these myself - original tamron nameplate. Like Luis I have found these to be uncommon, in fact I can hardly recall any cropping up on ebay. All the longer focal lengths - 350mm, 400mm (f6.9 and f7.5), 450mm can be more readily found IME.



I don't have too much to add to Luis' excellent review. One useful point: this lens, like the 350mm, has a "cheat" to reduce the close focus distance. Just slacken the grub screws on the focus ring, then wind it firmly back past the close focus position, this will start sliding the focus ring back from the front barrel. I moved it back sufficiently to allow a full 360° focus rotation, you might be able to steal a bit more. If you go too far the grub screws will be falling off the edge of the underlying ring and won't tighten.
Like Luis I found the aperture rings a tad sticky, however, also like the 350mm, the lens easily unscrews into 3 sections: front optical group; central section with aperture rings and 12 blade iris; rear mount and telephoto group section. A quick clean and relube fixed things (note the ball bearing is right next to the DoF markings).
One interesting point: this lens looks optically indistinguishable from the later adaptamatic 300mm f5.6 - same schema, proportions, everything.
In my opinion this lens maintains what IME is the the superior performance of the tamron presets over their contemporaries. This lens is already way ahead of those in any case due to its much superior close focus: <3m ( I measured the cfd to be 2.4m with "mod") instead of ~6m typically for all those prinz-galaxy etc etc 300mm f5.6's. My test pics of the castle turret are good actually, just slightly softer at f5.6, negligible fringing. Samsung NX20, jpg's, f5.6, f8, f11.









Some more pics - tweaked, resized etc in faststone.






This is a 1:1 pixel crop.


Last edited by marcusBMG on Mon Apr 03, 2017 10:23 pm; edited 2 times in total


PostPosted: Mon Apr 03, 2017 3:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Impressive.


PostPosted: Mon Apr 03, 2017 6:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Like 1 Like 1 Like 1


PostPosted: Mon Apr 03, 2017 11:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Good job Marcus!


PostPosted: Tue Apr 04, 2017 1:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Luis: Do you still use yours? How would you compare it to other 300mm?


PostPosted: Tue Apr 04, 2017 6:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I haven't used it in quite a few years, its in a box in the garage.
It isnt a bad lens at all and really is quite light and compact.
Maybe I should dig it up.
I have quite a backlog of articles to post though, and lenses still to try.


PostPosted: Tue Apr 04, 2017 2:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

luisalegria wrote:
I haven't used it in quite a few years, its in a box in the garage.
It isnt a bad lens at all and really is quite light and compact.
Maybe I should dig it up.
I have quite a backlog of articles to post though, and lenses still to try.


Luis: I know you've tried many lenses and wonder if you've had the Topcor 5.6/300. If so, I'd appreciate knowing your thoughts between these two lenses.


PostPosted: Tue Apr 04, 2017 4:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

No, sorry, I've never used the Topcor 300/5.6

The only ones I've tried are the 55 macro, 100/2.8 and the 200/5.6

All since

And those just by jury-rigging for short-focus/macro.