Aicoset 200mm F4.5

[martinsmith99]

Well, this lens was in a bundle of stuff and I had no enthusiasm to try it but I did. Ok, it's not the greatest performer but it's a long way from the worst. It's small & light, preset with a round iris at any aperture. The downside is the minimum focus distance which is a whopping 12 feet. Not really a problem as m42 extension tubes are cheap; just a bit inconvenient.

A few (exciting!) samples followed by crops:

On ext tubes


crop


Full image


crop at F4.5


crop at F8


some pics of the lens on the 5Dii




If I used 200mm lenses a lot I may be tempted to keep it as it is quite interesting and very light with pleasing bokeh. However as I am shedding some of my 200mms I expect this may be one.

I used a small lens hood for the car shots, but even so I had to give quite a boost to the contrast. Anyone picking up one of these should get a deep hood (55mm thread). The lighting was also very flat.

[martinsmith99]

No comments? Perhaps if I said it was a Zeiss, Leica or even a Helios there would have been some interest.

[estudleon]

No, MArtin. You do not need to have a great brand lens to have a commentary form us. You know it very well.

I was very good impressioned. The lens has good and pastel colors, nice to my eyes.

The reolution power is good too. As you said, perhaps not the wander nor poor one. It's enough to use it each time that the 200 mm come necesary.

Did you use it to take portraits, somebody likes that focal lenght to take portraits? Faces, hands, are good subjects.

Prone to flare? It seems so to me.

Rino.

[themoleman342]

Looks like it has a great many blades! Would be good for situations that you'd like/need to stop down a bit and want round highlights.

[martinsmith99]

At last! I thought it would get a bit of interest being rare.

Rino - With the focus distance issue I would have to use an extension ring for portraits. It does look like it could be ok for portraits though. It's not so much prone to flare as low contrast. It needs a deeper hood.

Marc - Yes, the round iris at any aperture could make for interesting bokeh.

[Olivier]

Interesting !
With tubes on a 4.5 lens, well, light has to be good !
You did fine samples with it, Martin and IQ is very good for that range of lenses.
How many blades ?

[Attila]

[ManualFocus-G]

Did someone say something?

Looks a bit like the famous skinny Tokina 200/4.5, which is a very useful vintage lens. Nice bokeh

[Orio]

Martin, maybe the range of image samples was not large enough to solicit many comments. You should try to present the lens in a variety of situations so to show how it does handle them. It is difficult to give an opinion on a 200mm lens based on a macro shot with tubes and on a single outdoors shot that was also post-processed. For instance, I would not really know what to say about this lens based only on these two images.

Please accept the above as a suggestion, not as a criticism. I give this advice because you seem to be affected by the fact that you got little or no feedback. I personally do not expect people to comment on my test images, I post samples to be useful for others and to be useful is what pleases me, I am fine also if nobody replies, but I understand that there can be other people who feels differently.

[walter g]

If you get the chance, I wouldn't mind seeing a shot or two at infinity.
One thing that really jumps out at me is, it has reverse blades. I wonder who made it.
Nice colors. So far what I see I like.

[Jeff Zen]

I really like your lens. It seems much better than some of my old Vivitars. I'd hang on to it.

[martinsmith99]

[fatdeeman]

Looks pretty interesting to me!

[PBFACTS]

What is interesting is the name : AICOset

AICO is the name of the owner of Soligor & Miranda (Allied Impex Co)

Is it a attempt for a new tm from aico ??

[martinsmith99]