Kalimar 300/5.5 Auto-T (interchangable mount)

luisalegria · Expire: 2018-01-18

I have documented the interesting mount on this lens in a previous post.

The lens itself, unfortunately, isn't quite as interesting, other than the mystery of its origins. Kalimar was a distributors trademark, and was used for a wide range of merchandise. There is a possibility this could be a Fujita, or from a successor to Fujita, who knows.

Its a very conventional preset auto lens save for its mount, with a sturdy and interestingly designed tripod mount and a very good sliding hood. Mechanically its well made and seems very solid and sturdy.

Its got two aperture scales, perhaps to accomodate different lens mounts, and what seems like a method to reverse them in relation to the mount. I haven't explored this feature. Usefully, it has a manual-auto switch on the lens, like Tokina should have but didn't place on their T4's.

As for performance - well, here things don't look so good. I am no connoisseur of lenses, so I tolerate a lot of lenses that the more discriminating gentlemen on this group would probably use as landfill. But even I think this one is poor. There just is no way to get this thing really sharp, contrast is pretty low even under perfect conditions, all kinds of problems at the edges (and my camera is a crop sensor), etc. So this thing will stay in the box as a curiosity.

Houses in Daly City (just south of San Francisco), or on the city border; the same sort of development covers most of these areas. if you are familiar with Pete Seeger's song "Little Boxes" or "Ticky tacky", its these exact houses he was on about. As should have been predicted, the people here liked the song and thought it meant the opposite of what Seeger meant. People who moved out to the real suburbs still are nostalgic about their little house and "Ticky tacky". For a similar case, see Bruce Springsteens "Born in the USA".

Brown pelicans

The bird -

crop -