Unexpected favorite lenses

[connloyalist]

I suspect that there are quite a few people on this forum who have collected a wide variety of lenses. Some people perhaps a lot wider than my humble collection.

The other day it occurred to me that some of my favorite lenses to use, the ones I reach for first, are not always the obvious ones.

For example, I love my Olympus OM 75-150mm/4.0. Perhaps I have a good example, I don't know. All I know is that it is a very late serial number. Another of my perhaps not obvious favorite lenses is my Meyer Optik Görlitz 35mm/4.5 Primagon. Yes it is slow but I like it a lot. If I need a 35mm-ish lens in a hurry that's the one I grab.

I am curious to hear if anyone else has lenses like these.

Regards, Christine

[caspert79]

SMC Pentax 150mm f/4. A great but unusual lens.

[papasito]

Minolta Rokkor MC PF 135/2 8

Although it suffers from CA in highlights, I like how draw the image.

[Phalbert]

I have the Zuiko too and find it sharp. One of my fav is the Soligor 180 f3,5 preset. I may post something about it.

[yoyomaoz]

I do not know if it could be called my absolute utmost favorite (which changes over time any way) but one "sleeper" which I did not expect is the Ricoh 50mm f1.7. I bought it for $15 Australian in an "antique" store (more a bric a brac store). I commented about it to my camera guy who said he believed that in the 1970s and 1980s as a result of the collaboration between Carl Zeiss and Yashica the latter was licensed to produce the Zeiss designed 50mm f1.7 for both themselves and other Japanese makers. I have not found absolute confirmation of this though I did somewhere see someone else suggesting something of this sort. In any event its a lovely lens. Sharp with really pleasant rendering and bokeh, though in the case of the Ricoh version it was obviously built to a price - lots of plastic etc. in the build. Optically though it is great. I recently bought the Konica badged version of the same lens which is built in the Konica livery and to a much higher build standard. When I get the chance I plan to do a comparison of the two.

[Oldhand]

Sometime ago I was gifted an old Miranda camera from a friend
It came with an Auto Miranda E 50mm f1.8 lens
I am totally unsure who made this lens -Miranda themselves, or one of the numerous Japanese lens makers of the time.
Adapters for Mirandas are hard to find so I cobbled one together from parts so that I could shoot with it on my Fuji.
In reality I was not expecting a lot from this lens, but it surprised immediately.
It is a wonderful portrait lens on APSc and has become one of my favourites.
I searched out the Auto Miranda 50mm f1.4 which is also outstanding, but I keep coming back to the 1.8

#1

[kansalliskala]

Sigma AF 50/2.8 macro.

[DConvert]

[kansalliskala]

[Doc Sharptail]

#1


Biggest surprise of the year was this one. S.C. Nikkor 50mm f1.4 shown on Nikkormat FT-N
I have only used it on film, and it seems to work well.
While not the greatest color rendition, due to it's early "blue" coatings, it does everything else quite well.


#1


Quick snap portrait at about 3 feet with the Nikkormat ~ wide open at f1.4 and 1/125 sec.
Very dense mid-day over cast. Image is a phone copy with heavy reflections of a low resolution digital print, which is the only way to get them around here these days. Cheap Kodak C-41 400 speed film.
I had an 8 x 10 print done of this, and the lab did an excellent job with the color and resolution.


#1




#2


Another pleasant surprise was this Nikkor Q 135mm f3.5, shown on the F-3.
The factory bullet case is a very nice touch.
This 135 has the smallest physical dimensions I've seen in a 135.

#3


With the Q at f5.6 and FT-N 1/125 sec at about 4 feet. Same film as above. Late winter goose berries still on the vine.
Another phone copy of a low resolution digital print.

-D.S.

[jamaeolus]

Schneider tele arton 85mm f4. Slow and unless you use a helicoid adapter mfd is not good but I just love the FL and the images it gets me.

[cooltouch]

A lens that has been an unexpected treat for me -- for the past 35 years or so -- has been the Canon FL 35mm f/2.5. I just like this lens. I've always liked the edge to edge sharpness it has.

Here's an old Kodachrome slide I took shortly after I bought the lens -- about 35 years ago. The contrast got a little blocked up in the dupe, which really isn't so great a dupe anyway (note all the sensor dust spots), but there's enough detail to get the point across.

[DigiChromeEd]

[papasito]

[Oldhand]

[Lloydy]

My fascination with old MF lenses seems to be based on the premise of me being 'cheap'. I have a few nice lenses that are possibly worth a bit of money because they are very good lenses, I have a few nice AF lenses that I bought new with various digital cameras, stunning lenses...that I rarely use.

On a wet and grey day, I'll pick a big old slow lens and go walking deep in the woods, I'll walk into town....with a 500 mirror lens. I like the challenge, I like to push the lens and myself.
Over time there's a core of lenses I keep going back to, there are good and expensive lenses in that core, and at the center long lenses seem to be prominent. I like 100's, I have too many 135's, I never go out without a 200. And it's usually the Dollonds S 200 / 3.5 (AKA Vivitar / Tokina and many others ) or the Rokkor QF 200 / 3.5. Both of these lenses feel like an extension of my vision, I adore them ( along with most of my 200's ) The Dollonds is a delight, the multi bladed bokeh is superb, the Rokkor is infuriating in strong sunlight, but I can forgive that, it's wonderful.

[papasito]

Oldhand

Thanks. Will be very appreciated

[hasenbein]

The Contax-Zeiss 28-85mm f3.3-4.

Had read about it as "big and heavy and a bit weaker than the 35-70".

But in February I bought one anyway because I simply was curious whether I could have that Zeiss quality I loved so much in the 35-70 with a broader zoom range.

Boy, what a surprise! Immediately after the first test snaps it became obvious that this is a completely different beast than the 35-70. While the 35-70 is about perfect sharpness, great contrast and in-your-face realism "as you saw it", the 28-85 is a character lens!

But not the typical "vintage" character lens which is about charming optical flaws. It is optically really good, except that on the wide end the corners are not so great. What baffled me was the BOKEH of this lens. Totally smooth! Together with its relatively low contrast, wide open shooting at the long end gets you really uniquely atmospheric photos, for instance in woodland and nature photography.

I LOVE to go out with this lens (it already has contributed 3 photos to my calendar this year), and the size and weight don't bother me at all.
The zoom creep I could alleviate with some Dymo tape.

[benadamx]

i accidentally got a Tamron SP 01A 35-80mm F/2.8-3.8 along with some other stuff, and i keep going back to it as a walking-around lens (and almost never use the other lens it came with)


#1

(vignetting is from cheap rubber collapsible hood, not lens itself)

[Phalbert]

Hi Lloydy. I do have a Marexar identical to your Dollonds but it never gets sharp enough at any aperture. But still using it...

[jmkmva]

Like Papasito noted above, the lens that pleasantly surprised me most were the Minolta MC Tele Rokkor PF 135mm f2.8 and the Minolta MC Rokkor X 135mm f2.8.

There is something about these six element lenses that seem to produce. They are lenses I use almost exclusively in this focal length.

[cooltouch]

Benadamx, if you do a search here on that Tamron 35-80, you will find a lot of positive reviews. It is one of Tamron's sharpest zooms, comparing favorably with very sharp primes. And if you take a look at its page over at adaptall-2.com, you can see why:

http://adaptall-2.com/lenses/01A.html

Its performance in the "sweet spot" at 80mm is amazing. I bought one because of all the positive reviews I read on it, but I must admit that I haven't used mine much yet. I have a 1.5x crop-sensor digital, so the resulting ~50-120mm in actual 35mm format is not useful for much other than portraiture, I suppose. I dunno, I guess if it's the only lens one has, one makes use of its abilities within its range.

[kansalliskala]

[D1N0]

I also have the Tamron Adaptall-2 35-70mm F/3.5 Model 17A It is almost as good as the 1A and can be found very cheap. It is also more compact and 65 grams lighter.

Geranium window by The lens profile, on Flickr

[jamaeolus]

Nice shot!