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Konica Hexanon 40mm pancake aspherical?
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 08, 2013 4:09 pm    Post subject: Konica Hexanon 40mm pancake aspherical? Reply with quote
Does the popular Konica Hexanon 40mm f1.8 "pancake" lens include, among its six elements, one aspherical element?


PostPosted: Fri Feb 08, 2013 5:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
No. http://www.buhla.de/Foto/Konica/Objektive/e40_18.html


PostPosted: Fri Feb 08, 2013 10:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
fermy wrote:
No. http://www.buhla.de/Foto/Konica/Objektive/e40_18.html


Thank you, fermy, for responding. I appreciate it. Good of you.

Candidly, prior to posting this thread I had of course checked buhla.de and found no mention of an aspherical element in this lens. And:

Honesty being the best policy, full disclosure: I darn well hope there is no aspherical element because if there is my goose is cooked. Totally! (I disassembled and reassembled my lens without taking it into account.)

What got me going on this is here, an auction I saw this morning for the first time:

Click here to see on Ebay

Speculation follows:

I am now speculating. I'm guessing. I really don't know (which is why I opened this thread):

I think this is another eBay MF lens screw-up. They are infamous for not really knowing what they should about our lenses while pretending they do. They generate lens information auto-magically which all too often is erroneous.

End speculation

Course I might be the one in error. Maybe the lens really does contain an aspherical element. I dunno.


PostPosted: Sat Feb 09, 2013 12:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Believe me there are no ASPH elements there, unless the seller put the element there himself Wink . That's just a clueless seller in the best case, or perhaps a really shrewd one trying to find a clueless buyer. Aspherical elements were insanely expensive to manufacture, they simply can not be found on a cheap lens like 40/1.8 Hexanon.

Here's where the confusion originated. That's clueless description by e-bay: http://www.ebay.com/ctg/Konica-Minolta-AR-40-mm-F-1-8-Lens-/101744430

Quote:
Product description
Product Information
The Konica M-Hexanon AR 40 mm lens will give you the most enjoyable photographic experience yet. This metal Konica Minolta lens is constructed with six elements in five groups and comes with one aspherical element, making it versatile and flexible. The 55 mm filter is ideal for your Konica Minolta camera and this manual focus lens will mount comfortably on a Konica AR mount. This Konica Minolta lens features a minimum focusing distance of 0.45 meters for amazingly sharp and clear close-ups, making it great for nature photography. A maximum magnification ratio of 1:7 also makes this manual focus lens great for photographic small-sized subjects. Lightweight and flaunting simple construction, the Konica M-Hexanon AR 40 mm is easy to use and extremely portable.


Note, that the lens in this "description" is called M-Hexanon AR!!!! Laughing , which is a contradiction in terms, since both M and AR designate mounts. Then it magically becomes Konica-Minolta lens, even though Minolta has nothing to do with it. It's a good exercise how to make 3 errors in every sentence. The seller adds to this error soup by calling the lens Hexagon. There are plenty of Hexamorons on ebay.


PostPosted: Sat Feb 09, 2013 1:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Actually, the Zoom-Hexanon 3.5-4.5/35-70 of the same era has an aspherical element. They aren't insanely expensive to make if you make them from injection moulded plastic. Kodak were the first to put an aspheric plastic element in a camera in the mid 70s, I forget what it was now but it was a cheap mass market camera.


PostPosted: Sat Feb 09, 2013 2:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Ohh, sure, but who would put plastic element in a prime? By the way, do you happen to know when did the lens makers start to use molded aspherical glass elements?


PostPosted: Sat Feb 09, 2013 2:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Well, given that they put a moulded plastic element in that zoom, which was the other choice for 'kit' lens with their bodies, I can believe they would do it with a prime, I think primes have them these days.

Not sure what the first glass aspherical was, I suspect Leitz in the 60s but I have no idea.


PostPosted: Sat Feb 09, 2013 3:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
iangreenhalgh1 wrote:

Not sure what the first glass aspherical was, I suspect Leitz in the 60s but I have no idea.


Ohh, but that's not what I asked. Cheap aspherics in good modern mass produced lenses (e.g. Nikon) are not plastic AFAIK, they are molded glass. Leitz and pretty much all other aspherics in the older lenses are ground glass. At some point in time they've made a transition, I am curious when.


PostPosted: Sat Feb 09, 2013 5:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
I don't know, you'd have to look it up, I assume one of the major Japanese makers at some point in the 1980s.


PostPosted: Sat Feb 09, 2013 10:22 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
I think Canon use moulded plastic asph' elements, I'm sure I read something on an official site where they claimed it as a breakthrough. But I could be mistaken.


PostPosted: Sat Feb 09, 2013 1:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Guys. Guys. Please. You're leaving me in the dust here. Kindly allow me to ask a related, but somewhat different question:

Should I again disassemble my lens and examine the elements, is there a straightforward way for me visually to identify an aspherical element?

For example, if I determine one of the lens elements to be plastic, does that mitigate in favor of it being aspherical?

Further, if I'm correct in assuming aspherical elements are molded (moulded) whereas conventional lens elements are ground, is there a "tell", a way easily to discern the difference when one has the element in hand?
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