What is the secret / Remember these lenses? Vitacon GMC...

[buerokratiehasser]

oookay, dopamine acting up again and just curious:

'B article ID
230981668248

"Vitacon 28-70 3.5-4.5"

This is an AF specimen but I think I have seen these for MF.

I have one of these with another label, MADE IN KOREA, there was some fault with it, lazy aperture (which ruins it on MAF except for wide open) or the gears were too slow for Alpha drive and kept making unhappy grinding noises, so I did try it once and was not too impressed. I also didn't like how it was labeled 3.5 yet was 3.5-4.5.

These lenses come under various brands that are so obscure that I don't even remember them well right now! I think one of them was GMC but I am not sure. All of them have the black small-pipe design, typical almost-an-inch typical quilt rubber ring, and labeling in the maddest of inks (intense red, intense green). There are also 70-210(?) teles and a super zoom 28-200 or so. Note: black smallpipe different from 75-200/4.5

I never got one of these teles, they went for more than I was willing to pay for a potential haze generator, much more.
They are so obscure that dyxum refuses to know them,
yet they go for quite some bucks.
What is it, the thrill of rarity? Or are these some well-known designs from MF ages? Maybe the Lei- I mean, Sigma 28-70 3.5-4.5 in better package?

[buerokratiehasser]

Probably not - very similar in size, lens positions even in MFD,
but the Kalimar screws its front lens in at about 55, and out otherwise,
while the Sigma- I mean, Exakta has continuous front lens movement.
That would pretty much indicate their optics are different I think.

[TrueLoveOne]

I happen to have one of the manual versions, in MD mount. Never used it, because i can't imagine it will be better than my Minolta 3.5/35-70.....

And indeed: they used pretty bright colors on it!

[buerokratiehasser]

Maybe they were just cheap copycats trying to ride along - Homer Leicaman knows a Panaphonic when he sees one...:
I think I have seen one of those with Minolta AF N-style rubber (!)

And can you think of another reason why Sigma or Tokina should have made (probably unrelated) 24-50 and 35-70 zooms (their existence is confirmed)? They knew perfectly well how to build 28-70 and maybe 24-70 at that time, and I doubt their 24-50 was much better than these optically.

[buerokratiehasser]

Hrmm copycat is maybe a bit too strong, may just have been competitive market niche games. You know all our CPUs are really from the same line but we can zap them a bit and have a low-cost offering. That kind of thing.
"You can save $150 and get a perfectly nice 24-50"