Show off your rare lens

dickb · Joined: 04 Apr 2008 Posts: 821

And also, if you're talking about about rare lenses, this one may qualify:

#1

It's a Zenza Bronica Zenzanon PS 500mm f/8 lens, the expensive one with fluorite..

kievuser · Joined: 27 Jan 2008 Posts: 551

That is a beautiful lens. Congrats

kievuser · Joined: 27 Jan 2008 Posts: 551

Two quite uncommon Chinese Shanghai 58-2 rangefinder cameras with lens. These two are earlier versions.

kievuser · Joined: 27 Jan 2008 Posts: 551

A rare early Soviet Start SLR with a rare lens. Only a few hundreds were made in 1958. These still have the old speed numbers of 1,1/2, 1/5, 1/10.....

kievuser · Joined: 27 Jan 2008 Posts: 551

What lens has a higher price vs weight ratio than those high grade microscope objectives? Perhaps only those for a lithographic machine?

Here is a specification sheet for a high-end Zeiss objective with a list price that I saw on that fleabay, and a few of high grade, and rare ones from my collection. Laugh 1

I have been wondering how these were made, and why they are so expensive?

kievuser · Joined: 27 Jan 2008 Posts: 551

A couple of solidly build and well finished Chinese lithographic and reduction lenses for making computer circuits. They were made in late 1970's. Even information for these lenses are very hard to find. I think these have a similar performance as those Nikon Ultra Micro lenses.

kievuser · Joined: 27 Jan 2008 Posts: 551

This is a long thread for many unknown vintage Chinese lenses. I posted them FYI. Some are quite good like this Lark 40/2, a Leica Summicron 40/2 copy. It is the normal lens for a series of fixe lens ragefinder cameras such as Lark 821, Huaxia 821,822,823.... Now some guys removed them from the camera, and modefied them for use on a digital mirrorless camera.

I have tried a Huaxia 821 40/2 on b/w film and compared it with a Canon FD 50/1.8, viewed the negative under a 50x microscope. Both lenses take very sharp pictures.

kievuser · Joined: 27 Jan 2008 Posts: 551

Beijing 608 factory's cine lenses brochure. These images are extremely hard to obtain. However, those fast 20/1.4, 28/1.4, 35/1.28, 50/1.3, and 85/1.4 images are missing from this cataloue.

kievuser · Joined: 27 Jan 2008 Posts: 551

More images of 608 factory's cine lenses. These were made in 1970's.

kievuser · Joined: 27 Jan 2008 Posts: 551

A rarely seen never used 608 factory's 40mm F2 cine lens from my collection. I never saw another one for sale over the years.

kievuser · Joined: 27 Jan 2008 Posts: 551

A Japanese Proskar projection lens. Maybe not rare.

kievuser · Joined: 27 Jan 2008 Posts: 551

An extremely rare Chinese 500mm F4.5 fast lens. It was made in Changchun by a famous optical factory. I almost bought it before the seller withdrew the listing some years ago. Perhaps only a few were made. I never saw another one for sale again.

BurstMox · Expire: 2016-08-02

Interesting! Like 1

davidblue1984 · Joined: 29 Dec 2013 Posts: 68

The custom made attachment arrived in the mail yesterday....Very excited.

Carl Zeiss Jena, 1937 'Olympia' Sonnar......

Although I appreciate a lens being kept in its intended form, I had to design this attachment so that I could use this beauty. I couldn't justify it sitting on a shelf collecting dust.

I've kept the original flektoskop and box, so that no part of the lens was harmed in the process....Since it has historical importance, you could say.

This is a rare lens since i dont think anyone else has this particular custom attachment!

kievuser · Joined: 27 Jan 2008 Posts: 551

That is a beautiful piece of metal and glass! Thanks for sharing. Thank you!

The build quality of the lens and your lens mount is impressive. Like Dog

kievuser · Joined: 27 Jan 2008 Posts: 551

I need to bump this old thread for some lens images.

Here is a guy's Red Flag-20 and lenses collection, also including a Dong Feng 120 SLR set. There is also an auction record for a set of Dong Feng 120 SLR in 2013 in Beijing. And an image of Beijing's Ghost market starts at 3:00 AM every Wednesday where people hunt for treasures. The market is a bit far from my home, so that I only go there 2-3 times a year only before lunch time.

kievuser · Joined: 27 Jan 2008 Posts: 551

I have a collection of Chinese Biotar copy lenses. These three are only part of them. The one on the left is quite rare made for Huaxi-80 SLR.

Eddie46 · Joined: 05 Dec 2016 Posts: 135 Location: cardiff,UK

The name of the centre lens is cool "Pearl River"! Is Huaxi pronounced "Hwarshee" ?

kievuser · Joined: 27 Jan 2008 Posts: 551

kievuser · Joined: 27 Jan 2008 Posts: 551

Some more interesting names for Chinese photo gears. The two enlarging lenses has a brand name of Tiane (swan) and æ™¨å…‰ ï¼ˆmorning light). The two slrs once used a name 'Panda', and then changed to Peafowl.These are rare lenses for their names alone. The SLRs also has a Biotar copy lens of very high quality.

PBFACTS · Joined: 24 Dec 2008 Posts: 569

kievuser · Joined: 27 Jan 2008 Posts: 551

justtorchit · Joined: 12 Oct 2009 Posts: 269 Location: St. Louis, MO

This is a super cool thread! Thanks for bumping it. I have never seen most of these models. Very very interesting...and problematic for camera hoarders like myself. Thank you!

kievuser · Joined: 27 Jan 2008 Posts: 551

kievuser · Joined: 27 Jan 2008 Posts: 551

Let's view those rare treasures once more. And I may add some images found recently. A collector friend owns a mint example of this rare lens. So now I know the original condition of the green filter and what it looks like. But the material of the filter is still a mystery. A dark green natural fluorite?