Lens Evaluation

woodrim · Joined: 14 Jan 2010 Posts: 4060 Location: Charleston

I have a new old lens that I have just taken my first pictures with. These pictures are for evaluation, so I tried to concentrate on pictures that would provide bokeh as well as demonstrate the lens' ability in varoius circumstances. I have made exposure adjustments, but there has been no cropping or correction of CA.

I will be very interested in hearing from others what you think of the results. If any of you want to guess the lens, good luck, but I don't think you will. There are some more than subtle hints to focal length and max aperture. The photos are all in this gallery and at their full size:
http://www.pbase.com/mdlempert/newlens I may not keep the pictures up for more than a couple of weeks because they're just test shots. EXIF is inaccurate due to un-chipped adapter.

gillbod · Joined: 24 Aug 2010 Posts: 28

hey woodrim,

they do look like decent shots. smoothly drawing lens to my eyes. care to share the identity of the lens?

woodrim · Joined: 14 Jan 2010 Posts: 4060 Location: Charleston

Thanks, gillbod, I appreciate your interest. I had hoped to get feedback without first providing information about the lens, but I suppose most people evaluate better when they already know what it is Confused

Strange, others have made guess-the-lens posts and actually got replies.

The lens is a 200mm f/4.5 Kashimura Dianon with a 16 blade diaphragm. I find it acceptably sharp, but not remarkably so. I was more impressed with the bokeh - specifically the round circles and thought maybe the lens had some potential in that way. There's CA; I'm finding more red than purple/blue.

Little is known about Kashimura. I've recently seen a SUN 200mm that looked very much like this lens.

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

Well, I just found this topic. Dang, you already gave it away. I had figured out by observing the bokeh that it was a telephoto, but not a particularly long one, that the maximum aperture was about f/4, and that the diaphragm had a lot of blades.

Kind of hard to judge sharpness when looking at rather small Internet-based images, but nonetheless, the lens does appear to be a good performer.

I've never heard of a Kashimura Dianon, but at least I'm glad to see that my analysis was on the money. What mount is it? M42?

woodrim · Joined: 14 Jan 2010 Posts: 4060 Location: Charleston

Michael: In pbase, you can select"original" from the size menu below the picture to get full size image. The mount is T-2 and I bought a Sony A-mount T adapter. As I said, sharpness is good but not outstanding. Low contrast. Bokeh potential. f/4.5 is really quite slow, but I like trying out rare and unusual lenses.