What do you think about Soligor 120-600?

[Karhallarn]

Hi Guys,

there is a soligor 120-600 5.6-8 in PK mount available at local store. Prise: 279€ in mint condition!

I'm still looking for along tele! What do you think of this lens! There is little information on the web!

Anybody owns one? Examples?

ciao,

Karhallarn

[CarbonR]

With this range, these apertures and these times, I don't think it is worth the price. Even if we can rather easily design long lenses without too many elements and keep a correct optical quality, the lens may be not as sharp as a Tamron 500SP which cost 2X less

[Boomer Depp]

He's asking way to much for this old lens with just average performance stopped down.

Ask the seller it you can mount in on your camera and take some shots at various focal lengths and see how it does....if your satisfied...then offer him 120€ at the most if it's in excellent condition....actually, offer him less then that....

I have the Soligor 130-650 which is a different lens...but don't have any digital pics with it....

I do have the Vivitar 120-600 and it's probably the same lens as the Soligor....some pics with the Vivitar 120-600 below...BTW that's five miles across Admiralty Inlet...enlarge the last lighthouse pic to see if the detail of the houses five miles away is sufficient for your needs....right click on the picture links for larger high resolution pics...

http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w110/boomer1954/031-1.jpg

http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w110/boomer1954/029.jpg

http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w110/boomer1954/033.jpg

Pic of the Vivitar 120-600....
http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w110/boomer1954/Camera%20Gear/096.jpg

Pic of the Soligor 130-650....
http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w110/boomer1954/Camera%20Gear/093.jpg

http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w110/boomer1954/Camera%20Gear/083.jpg

[Boomer Depp]

One other note,check the mount and see if it's an interchangeable mount.The last generation of the CD Soligor 130-650,may have a removable mount.

The previous owner said the aperture didn't work,someone didn't have the mount installed properly and it wasn't engaging the aperture lever.

Also,the interchangeable mount for this lens has two maximum aperture settings,one for 2.8 and the other for 5.6.

[Sevo]

Strictly speaking, this is not the type of lens popular hereabouts - it has a rather low optical quality, being targeted at the a "I've got the bigger tool" audience rather than real users, and only turns a average nondescript performer when significantly stopped down.

Its covered range has nonetheless made it moderately popular among landscape centric travel photographers in pre AF days - long lenses have little distortion, and their other flaws diminish as they are stopped down, and it is often better to carry one lens that only delivers at f/16 than two Nikon zooms each double the weight or four long primes. But AF and digital have zapped its used price - that thing is too expensive, you'll find a cheaper one if you shop around.

[Boomer Depp]

[justtorchit]

haha! your response is great boomer. I'd say in most cases I find myself falling into the #5 (young/cant afford the best yet) and #7 (curiosity) categories. I agree, Karhallarn, you should ask for a good amount less that asking price and just see if the store keepers feeling generous. If not, you can get a much higher optical quality lens for less or the same price. Many of these prices appear to stem from shops/people finding "old" lenses in mint condition and thinking just because it looks great, is "vintage", its worth a lot! (perhaps it was never used for a reason? )

[spleenone]

[cooltouch]

Hah! I can relate to some of those comments, Boomer!

I appreciate your posting the pics taken with the Vivitar 120-600. There's a camera shop local to me that has one in Nikon mount for about $130. I remember when this lens was being advertised in the photo mag mail-order ads back in the 80s, and wondered about it. I ended up buying a Sigma 600mm f/8 mirror, rationalizing that if I were to buy the zoom, I'd be using it mostly at its 600mm setting anyway. Ultimately the Sigma was a purchase I didn't regret.

[Boomer Depp]

Just having a little fun with "tools" folks

The Vivitar 120-600 surprised the heck out of me...didn't expect it to shoot that well...In fact it shot better then it had right to,when you consider the era it came from.

Michael...$130 would be a good price,they usually sell for $180-$220 on the used market.

[Boomer Depp]

One weekend night while waiting for the moon to clear the trees in December I took some photos with various long tools.....the following week when I was going through my images discarding everything,except what I felt were keepers....

When I came to the pics from that night,I discarded most of the images but one pedestrian image of the moon I liked,made later past midnight....the other pic I found intriguing and kept...was a pic taken earlier when I was shooting through the trees with a Tokina 800mm....when I had neither the trees or the moon in focus....

[Karhallarn]

Thank you guys for all your replies! I think I will not get the merchant to put don his price by 1/2. So what alternativ long manual tele zoom are there?

How about the Tamron Adaptall 200-500?

[Boomer Depp]

Hi BobbyR...my name is Boomer...I am a lens addict....how are you!

You ask...what grounds?

Simply because it was at a time when Vivitar was taking on board another new manufacturer for some of their lenses which would be Kobori in this case.Although as it turned out Kobori became one of Vivitars better manufacturers from this era.

Vivitar had designed and had built some viable zooms,but never had a zoom lens built of this size.Typically most manufacturers go through a learning curve,especially in a zoom of this size.

The fact that,though Vivitar continued to have produced for them a few good lenses during this era,they were stepping away from designing and having produced higher quality lenses and were going in the direction of average consumer lenses.Though Vivitar had some history of having a good optical design coupled with a good engineered and quality build,they were not pursuing such high levels as they once were.You can have a good optical design,but if not well engineered and built to exacting tolerances,will tend to degrade over time with use.This lens was a quality optical design,with quality engineering and build,not typical of Vivitar compared to their other lenses at the time,with the exception of a few macro and solid cat lenses.

Price wise this was a bargain lens compared to the higher quality manufacturers at the time.

The lens at $880 in 1986 was considerable cheaper then the other lenses in it's range by other third party manufacturers,with the exception of Soligor who had a similar lens in the same price range at $889,and Sigma who was selling for low prices as well,though they didn't build a zoom this large at the time.Now if we look at Tamron from the era,their 100-500 sold for $1519 and the 200-500 sold for $1723 or basically twice as much as the Vivitar.Tokina wasn't the bargain Vivitar was with a Price of $1399 for the 150-500 ATX.

Then we come to quality control of third party lens manufacturers or any manufacturer for that matter.Sigma was doing horrible with QC and their older lenses reflect this.Soligor's manufacturers had been taking Soligor to the cleaners in this department for some time.Vivitar,though they still maintained a QC with their manufacturers,changing manufacturers usually leads to a QC problem through the learning curve.Building a newly designed and engineered lens has a teething problem with QC as well....

I think that's sufficient for me to say....I was surprised indeed.

[Boomer Depp]

[Karhallarn]

I was referring to the f6.9 one! So is it better or worse than the Soligor?

How bad is it and in which way?

[Boomer Depp]

It's heavy,slow and not very sharp...slow and not to sharp doesn't give you a lot of options.

Compared to the Soligor 130-650,both were equally unsharp,with a bit of PF....

Compared to the Soligor 120-600 I wouldn't know,unless the Soligor 120-600 is a re-branded version of the Vivitar 120-600 in which case the lens is pretty good.

Did the Soligor 120-600 look like the Vivitar 120-600 in the pic I posted?

[Karhallarn]

Yes, it looks the same as the vivitar!

[Boomer Depp]

Did the owner let you mount and shoot it?

Did it have a high quality build like the Vivitar?

[Karhallarn]

Buildquality is high and I tried it. Seemed nice but the weather was so bad that day that there where no good shots to obtain! They where mostly flat and blurred. That's why I wanted to ask for experience!

[Himself]

[Karhallarn]

Yeah, thats the lens, eventhough it's not exactly the one I found!

[Boomer Depp]

[Karhallarn]

Mostly I'm around without a tripod and I manage to get 1/50th of a sec sharp with my 300mm Nikkor at f5.6!

Hamburg, germany, is not known for the best weather around but it's not that bad either!

ciao,

Karhallarn

[Attila]

Not easy to make long lens in prime and they are pretty costly. I not expect any good from this Soligor Zoom.

[Boomer Depp]

Actually,if this is the same Kobori built lens as the Vivitar 120-600,then the lens is a capable of delivering acceptable images.