Yashica 300mm f5.6 MLC

Xpres · Expire: 2014-10-28

Does anyone know anything about this lens? Should I expect great things? As good as the Tamron?
It's ML so should be at least OK. I had a choice of a severel lenses yesterday but only had a few pounds in my pocket so had to choose just one - I'm hoping I made a good choice.
I can find very little reference to this lens apart this on cdegroot which makes me feel a lot better about it;

"A very fine and sharp telephoto lens, at all apertures. Quite rare, especially in mint condition, Yashica apparently didn't make too many of these. ....... Only a little longer than the Yashica 200mm/4.0 ML(c), the 300/5.6 is a nice length for surprise wildlife shots when rested on a car window or other support. When the 'C' version was introduced with its more compact sizing, Yashica dropped the tripod lens mount. This is o.k., except when using a teleconverter - quite a bit of metal is then hanging off that lens mount. I haven't any complaints over the optical quality of the lens, but f/5.6 is slow for a 300mm, and for wildlife, especially in shade, you'll want high-speed film. Landscape shots are fine of course at slow speeds when using a tripod."

"The ML 300/5.6 "C" version has an optical configuration of 6 elements in 3 groups, therefore has less glass/air surfaces, which leads to low transmission losses and hence, high contrast."

Time to try it out............ Anyone elso owned this?

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

I don't know this lens, but generally all Yashica ML lens is fine, some of them superb. (24mm,28mm)

Cobalt60 · Joined: 01 Mar 2007 Posts: 544 Location: Central Europe

I (of course) own this one and I can recommend it - especially if you can get it at a decent price.
Only downside is that it's not really fast for a 300mm ... unfortunately Yashica did mostly stay in the 153/2.8 - 200/4 - 300/5.6 scheme, maybe not to be too big a contender with their T* relatives.
Only notable exception is the 400/5.6 which seems to EXTREMELY rare andthe 1000/11 reflex which is more frequent but expensive.

Xpres · Expire: 2014-10-28

I hope you didn't mind me quoting you 'Cobalt60'.
It seems this lens is indeed quite rare judging from the lack of responses both here and on MFforum.
I've had a little play with it and it seems to me to be a very good 300mm. It's relatively light and small which makes up for the slow 5.6 - which isn't that bad. It is sharp even wide open and certainly is a contrasty lens - and it is easy to use on a crop digi reflex.
I'm pleased with it. My copy is in excellent if not quite mint condition and only cost ?9. Smile

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

I itended to pay around 100 GBP for this lens Smile

so you made deal of the Year! Congrats!

stevemark · Joined: 29 Apr 2011 Posts: 3754 Location: Switzerland

Some years ago I got a nice looking sample of the Yashica ML 5.6/300mm C, and yesterday the corresponding (older and larger) Yashica ML 5.6/300mm arrived. First preliminary test images both at infinity as well as near MFD (MFD is 4.5m) suggest a pretty even performance; the larger and older "non C" lens may have an edge when it comes to corner resolution and lateral CAs, but the differences aren't big for sure. I'll post a comparison of the two lenses as soon as conditions are more favourable; today there were lots of air turbulances and some rain - not very useful for testing 300mm lenses.

S

stevemark · Joined: 29 Apr 2011 Posts: 3754 Location: Switzerland

Here's an image of the two lenses side-by-side:

The older "non-C" version of the ML 5.6/300mm is pretty large indeed - usually an indicator for a rather "relaxed" optical construcion and good performance. Preliminary tests are suggesting the ML 5.6/300mm "non-C" has not more CAs than the Nikkor AiS 4.5/300mm IF-ED. The smaller ML 5.6/300mm C seems to have a slightly decreased overall performance with slightly more lateral CAs and a slightly reduced corner resolution. Both lenses have a MFD of 4.5m which is pretty limiting, especially compared to the 300mm IF lenses from Canon, Minolta and Nikon.

S