Konica Zoom-Hexanon 3.5-4.5/35-70 on NEX-3

[iangreenhalgh1]

This is a small and very light lens, being made of plastic. I tried it on film and it surprised me with how good it was so I decided to put it on the NEX to see what the IQ is really like.

I'm pleasantly surprised, I think it's excellent for an old zoom.

Sharpness test wide open at f3.5, 70mm end, is isn't tack sharp but sharp enough, just the tiniest bit of CA but not enough to bother about, definitely acceptable.




At f5.6, 70mm end, sharpens up nicely and the CA disappears, not bad at all.




Bokeh test wide open, 70mm end, nice and smooth, very good for a zoom I think:



Close distance sharpness test, wide open, 70mm end, at this distance it is very sharp:




Wide open flower shot, 70mm end, colours are really nice and vivid:



Wide open, 70mm end, nice bokeh again:



Wide open, 50mm setting, nice bokeh again:



Portrait test, wide open, 70mm end, does a nice job:



Distortion test, 35mm end, I'd put the ruler to this and the lines are all straight so I'd say distortion is very minimal, I've seen 35mm primes with way more distortion and most zooms have way more distortion that this.



35mm end, f5.6, looks nice to me:



35mm end, f5.6, looks good again, sharpness is definitely good enough:




So all in all I really like this lens, and I'm not a guy who likes zoom lenses. It's very light and compact so handles excellently on the NEX, IQ is great for an old zoom, none of the weak colours and contrast, poor sharpness and distortion you expect from an old zoom, it can compete with a lot of primes I think.

[iangreenhalgh1]

It also has a macro setting that works at the 70mm end. To compare what it does compared to at the mfd, here's a shot at f5.6 70mm end, mfd:




That's pretty good I think, bokeh is nice and it's sharp, here's the same subject but with the macro setting engaged:



Well I really like that, bokeh becomes really nice with the macro engaged and it's pretty sharp. Here's another exaple of the macro ability, f5.6 again:




Nice again, very smooth bokeh and sharp. Another example:




I'm pretty surprised at how good this lens is using the macro setting. One more at f5.6:




Can't complain about that, it resolves all the little trichomes on the flower, this is a good lens for flower shots by the looks of it and that smooth bokeh is very nice to my eyes.

One more without the macro engaged, 70mm end:



To be honest, all the Konica zooms I've tried have been excellent and this one is no exception, I'm gonna be using this one quite often on my NEX I think.

[Excalibur]

Well as a Hexanon fan I would like to have the Hexanon zoom but it never came my way at a very cheap price, but do own the Minolta 35mm -70mm f3.5 version (plus similar Praktica, Tamron and Canon) and it would be interesting to compare all.

[iangreenhalgh1]

I have the Sigma made Praktica and it's not as good as this Hexanon. I'd be interested in comparing this to the Minolta 3.5/35-70, I expect they are pretty similar.

[iangreenhalgh1]

Some macro mode shots at f8. I think this is a great lens for flower shots.


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[poilu]

look like a great lens !
your crops look quite noisy, I think it is better to use 100 iso to evaluate quality

[iangreenhalgh1]

Yes, some of these were shot at 400, sadly had to bump it up a notch from the NEX's 200 base setting to get a high enough shutter speed to handhold as we are still having a really bad summer here without any sunshine.

I can see this lens staying on my NEX quite a lot of the time due to how small and light it is, the good IQ and the useful macro mode. I'll still prefer a prime for serious work though.

[Attila]

Please show a picture from lens itself, to make identify it easier!

[iangreenhalgh1]

Sure, here she is:

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and some info from buhla.de:

http://www.buhla.de/Foto/Konica/Objektive/e35-70_35-45.html

The Zoom-Hexanon AR 35-70 mm / F3.5-4.5 is a two-touch zoom with two separate rings for focal length adjustment and focusing. It was introduced in 1985 together with the TC-X, and was often sold together with this body as a bundle. It superseded the older Zoom-Hexanon AR 35-70 mm / F4, which also was a two-touch zoom. The Zoom-Hexanon AR 35-70 mm / F3.5-4.5 is a small and very lightweight lens. The lens barrel is completely made out of plastic, no longer metal. Therefore, it has an awkwardly unbalanced feeling to it on the old heavy bodies up to and including the Autoreflex T3N.

The lens changes its overall length when the focal length is changed – the shorter the focal length, the longer the lens. As on almost every Konica zoom lens, the front element rotates when focus is shifted, making the use with polarizers and gradated filters a bit cumbersome.

The Zoom-Hexanon AR 35-70 mm / F3.5-4.5 was probably the last SLR lens that was introduced by Konica, before they abandoned the SLR line in 1987.

As far as I know, the Zoom-Hexanon AR 35-70 mm / F3.5-4.5 is the only Konica lens that uses aspherical plastic lenses, that have been a newly developed technology back then – the aspherical back element of this lens is not made out of glass, so that you should be extremely careful to avoid scratches when cleaning this element.

As the Zoom-Hexanon AR 35-70 mm / F3.5-4.5 was built only for about two years, no changes were applied to this lens, there is only one variation. All these lenses are of the latest style with plastic lens barrel, a smallest aperture 22 and the green AE mark with the rectangular AE lock button.

The Zoom-Hexanon AR 35-70 mm / F3.5-4.5 has a provision for close-ups. In normal use, it focuses down to 0.8 m (2 ft 71/2"), when set to macro mode on the focal length ring, the minimum distance can be shortened to 0.35 m (1 ft 13/4"). This enables the lens to do some nice close-ups, but the close-up function does not suffice for real macro shots.

When the lens was introduced to the market, the average quality of zoom lenses had already been dramatically improved copared to the standards of the 70s.

The Zoom-Hexanon AR 35-70 mm / F3.5-4.5 has good image quality for its time. Images are sharp and quite contrasty. There is some barrel distortion in the wide-angle range that can be seen with straight lines along the image edges and a very weak pincushion distortion in the telephoto range that is not too obvious even with straight lines along the image edges. Vignetting in the wide-angle range stays in acceptable limits. Because of the relatively slow speed, the viewfinder image ist a bit dark and precise focusing is often difficult due to darkened split-image or microprism. The pre-predecessor Zoom-Hexanon AR 35-70 mm / F3.5 is said to be of better optical quality, but I never had a possibility to compare the lenses so far.

The lens was delivered together with a matching round plastic lens shade. However, this lens shade is too shallow and does not provide adequate protection – a common problem with zoom lenses covering both wide angle and telephoto ranges.

Zoom lenses in this focal length range and with comparable speed have been very popular at the time, many manufacturers sold these lenses in a bundle as the only lens together with their camera bodies. In my opinion, such a zoom lens cannot replace a fast standard lens, the limitations caused by the slower speed are too strong.

Although the Zoom-Hexanon AR 35-70 mm / F3.5-4.5 was only built for two years, it can be found without difficulties, mostly in combination with a TC-X body. Sold for itself it fetches prices in the middle range, it is neither very cheap nor an expensive collector's item. If you want a zoom lens that covers the range from moderate wide angle to moderate telephoto with a decent image quality and low weight, this lens will serve you well. The optically better – especially concerning distortions – predecessor Zoom-Hexanon AR 35-70 mm / F3.5 is much more difficult to get and you have to pay higher prices for this lens.

[iangreenhalgh1]

First use of this lens on film:

http://forum.mflenses.com/roll-for-7th-july-kodak-vision2-100t-pushed-to-533-in-d-76-t51207.html

[iangreenhalgh1]

Some more flower shots, these have had a fair bit of PP:


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