Show off your rare lens

kievuser · Joined: 27 Jan 2008 Posts: 551

You may have seen this uncommon camera and lens on flea-bay already. But they are rare in this condition these days.
It is a rare early version of Shanghai 58-2 rangefinder camera made in late 1950's. The lens is not as sharp as an Industar-50.

kansalliskala · Expire: 2016-12-30

I don't have any very rare lenses but this lens/body combination is unique (statistically, I figure?)

RubberFlubber · Posted: Fri May 13, 2016 11:02 pm Post subject:

Mike Deep · Joined: 25 Oct 2008 Posts: 323 Location: Upstate New York

kievuser · Joined: 27 Jan 2008 Posts: 551

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9096 Location: Houston, Texas

I don't think I own any really rare lenses anymore. But I have owned a few that I might as well go ahead and mention. Most of these were acquisitions when I was a camera dealer.

I found a photo of this one on the net, so I'll share it here. It is a Killfit 300mm prototype with a built-in reflex housing. Mine looked just like this one. There's a lever on the other side to flip up the mirror out of the way.

For over 10 years I owned a copy of the Vivitar Professional 135mm f/1.5. Huge and very soft. It was so soft, I rarely used it. Sold it to a Japanese collector several years ago for a fraction of what they're selling for now.

I even owned one of the legendary Canon 50mm f/0.95 optics for the 7s rangefinder. Back then it was little more than a curiosity and wasn't worth much. I think I sold it for about $200.

Probably the most uncommon lens I currently own -- not really rare, but not particularly common -- is my Canon 85mm f/1.2 SSC Aspherical. What an incredible lens it is.

Another uncommon Canon I own is the FL 85-300mm f/5 2-ring zoom. This thing is the size of a bazooka. Very well built and image quality is surprisingly good.

Another lens that I currently own that I consider to be uncommon at least is a Sigma 600mm f/8 mirror in EOS mount. The lens isn't rare at all, but those in EOS mount are quite uncommon.

anktonio · Expire: 2017-02-22

Thank you all, it is a pleasure to see these lenses!

kievuser · Joined: 27 Jan 2008 Posts: 551

Hi Michael,

Many thanks for sharing these fascinating images. Thank you!

I will check the flea-bay to see what the 0.95/50 Canon lens cost these days. Rare lenses could be a good investment IMO.

kievuser · Joined: 27 Jan 2008 Posts: 551

Here is a real rare one, a Chinese military missile tracking lens! I think it is a 2000mm F7 mirror lens, and it weighs about 30 kilograms. It is a very sharp lens, and I can read an article title of a newspaper a few hundred meters away! Like 1 small

But I need a small truck to carry it. The second image was borrowed from the web. The seller told me that it was removed from a similar vechicle for tracking missiles.
Today, it seems the PLA has much better such tracking devices.

kievuser · Joined: 27 Jan 2008 Posts: 551

A Cooke Speed Panchro 28/2 T2.3 movie lens. Cooke movie lenes are not rare, but I don't see a 28mm one very often. It could be an uncommon lens.

sceptic · Joined: 01 Jun 2013 Posts: 255

Perhaps not as rare as other lenses mentioned already, byt my rarest lens nonetheless:

Kodak Recordak Micro File Ektar by scepticswe, on Flickr
The zebra-pattern mount is my adapter to convert it to M42.
The lens was used to scan newspapers to micro film during WW2:

kievuser · Joined: 27 Jan 2008 Posts: 551

I like lenses with a history. Like 1 small

Thanks for sharing. I will read the article later.

Nordentro · Expire: 2015-01-29

Meisei Werden 10cm f/3.5 ltm (a rebranded Tanaka Kogaku Tele-Tanar 10cm)

camera-wiki.org writes:

«The Tele-Tanar 10cm f/3.5 is mentioned as available soon in November 1955» and «The 10cm f/3.5 was probably sold in limited quantities only, and no surviving example has been observed yet.»

Here it is Wink

:

Source: http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Tanar_lenses

kievuser · Joined: 27 Jan 2008 Posts: 551

A couple of Nikon printing lenes. It seems that the 450mm F9 one is much less often seen. I don't know why?

kievuser · Joined: 27 Jan 2008 Posts: 551

A Chinese movie anamorphic projection lens beside a French counterpart.
It is not rare, but rarely seen outside China for sale. It was made in late 1970's.
I don't know which one is rarer bwteen the two.

kievuser · Joined: 27 Jan 2008 Posts: 551

Thanks Nordentro for sharing the information and image. Like 1 small

kievuser · Joined: 27 Jan 2008 Posts: 551

I am puzzled with this rare OM Zuiko mount Chinese marco lens 50/3.5. It focus down to 0.15 meter and it has a very different construction than a Zuiko 50/3.5 macro lens with a much bigger front element.Why the user would want such a lens being custom made when he could use an original OM macro lens easily? It has no s/n, and I haven't seen another one yet over the years.

Nordentro · Expire: 2015-01-29

kievuser · Joined: 27 Jan 2008 Posts: 551

Have you seen a lens with an opaque front lens element? Here is a most mysterious Chinese lens that I have seen over the years. It looks like one of the industrial lenses for computer chip making with a reduction rate of 1/50X. But why it has such an element? For X ray or some invisible light? But it has a letter e on the front ring, so that it was made for E-line reduction use. Could it be that the original lens was transparant, but the material (could be a kind of nature one) deteriorated over the years so it became opaque? It was made in 1973. It has a m40x0.75 thread screw mount. This is the only one I have seen even among the already quite rare Chinese ultra micro lenses.

These industrial lenses has a very high resolving power of a few hundred lp/mm and minimum distortion according to the poster page.

kievuser · Joined: 27 Jan 2008 Posts: 551

A couple of Carl Zeiss Jena M40 screw mount lenses. I think the Triotar 85/4 is quite rare, or no? It seems much less often seen than other M40 mount lenses.

kievuser · Joined: 27 Jan 2008 Posts: 551

A Haiou-71 50mm F1.4 CRT lens for Seagull DFAB industrial camera. This lens has no aperture, and with limited focusing range. It is much less often seen than the 58/2 biotar copy lens that is also seen mounted on this camera. The 50/2 Great Wall 35mm movie lens made in 1976 is also quite rare. If IIRC, Nikon also has such a lens (50mm F1? CRT) that is very rare and expensive to a collector.

Marek · Posted: Sat May 14, 2016 11:55 am Post subject:

I think this one is fairly rare too. A prewar CZJ Tele-Tessar 25cm f/6.3 in well preserved conditon. But I do know about another 3-4 copies being spread in the world. Another one will certainly have member Exaklaus.

IIRC my copy has horrible performance for some reason (no relation to the lens condition, it just performs somewhat poorly)

kievuser · Joined: 27 Jan 2008 Posts: 551

Size comparison of two mirror lenses, one is a Soviet MTO 1000A 1100mm F10.5 for 35mm cameras, and the previouly mentioned Chinese medium format 1000mm F6.7 . The Chinese lens weighs about 6-700 grams lighter. Both lenses perform about the same for sharpness .But the Chinese lens image has a slightly warmer tone. I don't remember ever seen a similar lens on-line for such a medium format lens. It could be of a Chinese original design.Those Zeiss or Nikon 1000mm mirror lenses are much heavier.

kievuser · Joined: 27 Jan 2008 Posts: 551

Thanks Marek for your contribution! Like 1 small

kievuser · Joined: 27 Jan 2008 Posts: 551

A huge and rarely seen Chinese printing lens 900mm F11. It was made in 1988 according its s/n by Shanghai Camera factory.