Vivitar 135mm f2.8 T mount lens

fuzzywuzzy · Expire: 2013-11-30

I got this Vivitar 135mm f2.8 T mount lens on Ebay a few days ago. It's my first mf only lens and I'm still getting a feel for manual focus and of course the lens itself.

I took a few tripod shots of a newspaper hanging over the back of a chair, that seems an unforgiving but fair test.

100% crop wide open at 2.8, text is legible

100% crop at f4, seems pretty sharp to me

I find shooting handheld is tricky, my body is a Canon crop sensor so it's an effective 216mm focal length. Here's a 100% crop of my daughter, taken handheld on a bright day. I don't recall the aperture, I'm used to having that stuff in the metadata...

That was my clearest shot of the day, but many of the rest were perfectly acceptable for anything but pixel peeping.

conclusion - well worth my $50 CDN.

If anyone knows anything about this lens I'd like to know when it was manufactured, and if this model has a good reputation.

If anyone is curious about the lens and wants me to take a test shot or two I'll try to oblige.

fuzzywuzzy · Expire: 2013-11-30

The pictures aren't showing up, is there a trick I'm missing? When I edit the post and preview they show up...

I drag and dropped them, using Firefox as my browser.

visualopsins · Expire: 2025-04-11

Big Dawg · Joined: 28 Jan 2009 Posts: 2530 Location: Thach Alabama

I've got a few of the Vivitar 135mm presets and the are all sharp lens with good bokeh. Just be gentle with it as the Iris blades have been known to get crossed up and out of shape and in extreme cases bent or broken. I learned it the hard way so just use it gently and it will be fine. As to the date of manufacture go here for a look...Just scroll down to the Vivitar section and look for the 135mm preset lens.

http://homepage3.nifty.com/3rdpartylens-om/3rd-party-list.htm

luisalegria · Expire: 2018-01-18

These samples don't look like you have hit exact focus.

You should be getting better results even wide open for these 100% crop examples. I am sure this lens is capable of better.

The trick is to achieve critical focus, which is not at all easy with the shallow DOF of a tele lens wide open, and takes practice. It is hard even on film cameras, which are better equipped for it with proper groundglass and split image or microprism focusing aids.

Comparing 100% crops is a challenging standard, the film equivalent of which very few people bothered to do in the old days.

Also, as this is an old lens, you will get much better contrast and color with a deep hood. A good hood is a necessity.

fuzzywuzzy · Expire: 2013-11-30

Very helpful comments folks.

Visualopsins - that makes sense, thanks.

Bigdawg - thanks for that link, it appears the lens could be as old as I am.

Luisalegria - I'll look into a lens hood, thanks. I was just noodling around, I suppose if I had a shot I cared about I could do wonders with the contrast in photoshop... but installing a lens hood once sounds a lot more time effective then fiddling with each shot in post-production Wink

Hopefully my focus will improve with practice.

estudleon · Joined: 15 May 2008 Posts: 3754 Location: Argentina

Your lens should have a blue and purple reflctions looked it form the front.

The single coat of it was good, but single coat.

1- As Luis said, use lens shade in all the circumstances.

2- Avoid the clear, iluminated and uniform background (like one iluminated white wall)

3- Avoid the light font (like the sun) into the image.

4- Avoid the bright foreground

That will increase the normal contrast of your lens.

Rino

Scheimpflug · Expire: 2011-11-18

I'm digging up an old thread here, but I just found one of these in a local shop. Like Big Dawg cautioned, this one did have one of its iris blades loose inside. Wink

Does anyone know if this is a good lens? It is smaller and faster than my Soligor 135/3.5, and would be easier to use by being a preset with the aperture control located on the front end.

I didn't buy it, because I figured I should research it first, given that I would have to sink some repair time into it before I could use or test it. Wink

Excalibur · Expire: 2014-04-21

Pancolart · Expire: 2013-11-18

A part of this "manufacturer still unidentified" series:
http://forum.mflenses.com/mistery-lenses-collection-t23606.html

fuzzywuzzy · Expire: 2013-11-30

woodrim · Joined: 14 Jan 2010 Posts: 4060 Location: Charleston

These should be so cheap that it doesn't pay to buy one with problems. Many better choices available. I also have a Komine made auto model and while I don't know if it's "razor" sharp, it sure looks pretty good - and cheap too.

ManualFocus-G · Expire: 2014-11-24

For info, I've owned two copies of this lens and they were both terrible until stopped down to f5.6 or f8. The wide open sample in this thread is actually representative of this model!

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

Take a look on Jupiter-11, Jupiter-37 they are in same price range and don't need luck all works perfectly from wide open to F16. Usually this is true for all Russian lenses , they are in same cheap range than Japanese lenses , but result is not cheap at all.