Vemar (old Tokina) 135/2.8

[luisalegria]

I have another of the Tokina-made preset series -



L->R - 105/2.8 Cunor (47mm mount), 135/3.5 Sears fixed M42, 135/2.8 Vemar (47mm mount), 200/4.5 Lentar (T-mount - in this case its an Exakta T-mount)

This lens is clearly an early preset Tokina (Tokyo Koki, at the time this lens was made Tokina was actually a trademark they used for just a small part of their production that was sold directly; most others were relabelled by distributors), it has the "family resemblance" in all structural details, as well as the proprietary early Tokina 47mm interchangable mount - sort of a T-mount but unique to these Tokinas.



47mm removable mounts - 105mm Cunor and 135mm Vemar

It does have some differences from other of the better known Tokina presets, notably the distance scale is only marked in feet, not feet and meters. There may be a variant of this that is marked like the others.

Otherwise its the spitting image of the 135/3.5 particularly, just being a bit fatter.

This is not really a common lens; the 35/3.5, 35/2.8, 135/3.5, the 200/4.5, even the 300/5.5 and the odd 28/3 and the oddball preset version of the 90-230/4.5 are much more easily found, I have no idea why. I don't think there is a different 135/2.8 in this series either.

As a lens, its very typical of this series and most Japanese preset teles of the period - well made, long minimum focus - 6ft marked, more like 5 in practice - adequately sharp wide open. The Tokinas tend to be rather good at backlit subjects and seem less prone to flare than most of these early lenses.

Performance is quite good. This lens can deliver sharp 1:1 blowups at f/2.8, if the photographer does his job. The "bird" below is not quite perfectly sharp because I didn't quite nail focus; I think I missed it by a couple of mm in front. Contrast isn't quite so good, again typical of a lot of these.

Samples - all at f/2.8, some using extension rings

















The bird -



crop -

[Kathmandu]

Luisalegria : Awesome series -and the famous "bird".

Who made this Vemar Tele-Auto 135mm f3.5, ?

[luisalegria]

There are a lot of this design out there; I have one right now - a 200/4.5 in Nikon mount.

I think these are probably Tokinas. There are plenty of Tokinas seen in the Vemar brand, and there seems to be a close match with the T4 series of lenses.

On the other hand, I seem to recall an identification with Sun.

[Kathmandu]

Thanks much-I am
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