Classic Vivitar Superzooms review: 28-210mm & 28-200mm

[marcusBMG]

So I acquired out of interest both the Cosina made 28-210mm f3.5-5.6 and the Kobori made 28-200mm f3.5-5.3. I have started writing up a bit of a comparison and will post it here but I would like to check on something first.

I put the lenses on my Lumix G1 to look at the parfocality (magnified focus assist is very good for that) and also take some shots at close focus. First I tried the kobori. At 28mm the pics were so bad I was assuming that the lens was faulty! This is the lens I mention in the cheap lens challenge thread and which I have partly dis-assembled. But when I tried the cosina - that was almost as bad. Here's some crops from test pics taken wide open at 28mm, 50mm, 70mm, 100mm 200mm.







At 200mm there was nothing wrong with IQ and the focus was correct at ~ 3.5m on the distance scale. Zooming to 28mm the focus drifts to 2.5m (=cfd) and the IQ goes to s**t. So what I want to know is whether this lack of IQ at 28mm close focus is corroborated by other users of these lenses, or is it something I did/something wrong with these lenses. I can add that the lenses were rather better at 28mm outdoors, landscapes ie distant focus

[Pancolart]

Could we exclude with absolute certainty that Bell's wasn't interfering conclusions reached ?

[Lloydy]

I recently traded my Vivitar 28-200 with Phil, so he might be able to help.

EDIT. You need to drink better whisky than that, every lens is wonderful with decent whisky.

[marcusBMG]

Hic *8!! **** I absolutely refute any impertinent suggestions etc etc

[dmedme]

Marcus, I think your problem is that the indicated minimum focus distance for the Cosina 28-210mm f3.5-5.6 only applies in Macro mode, at the long end. At the short end MFD is more like 5 or 6 metres, maybe more.

I found it to be useless indoors; my house isn't big enough!

I took it in to the back garden, set it to the MFD, photographed the lawn, and looked for where the grass stalks were in sharp focus, hence my estimate.

[marcusBMG]

Further test shots G1: I was about a meter and a half from the start of the hedge, hedge length about 30m. at no point is the hedge sharp. lens at cfd. kobori top. resized. Whats going on?
Both lenses start being sharp at ~50mm zoom

[Oldhand]

I have the Kobori.
At 28mm it has a very short focus throw from mfd to infinity of only around 30 degrees of focus travel.
Macro is unavailable at 28 - only at 200mm.
The minimum focus distance at 28mm is going to be just under 2.5 metres.
Have you tried this lens on a DSLR for which it has the fitted mount?
Mine is for Nikon AI.
Here is a quick pic from a few moments ago on the D300.
Shot at 28mm at closest focusing distance.
OH

[PhantomLord]

Hi Marcus,

I had the Kobori version and it was quite good lens, of course if you bare in mind that's old 28-200 zoom lens .
Images you've posted indicate that there's something wrong, either:
a) with the lenses (which I doubt)
b) with the adapter - try those lenses on other camera with lens's native mount - as OH said
c) with your focusing ability - but I doubt it too, because you had to be useless to achieve such results with good lenses .

In my opinion, this Kobori made lens was really good and delivered really nice photos. I've sold it because I prefer better quality of two lenses (let's say 28-90 and 70-210 Vivitar's S1), but I still regard it was more than capable of providing good photos as OH presented.

Here are a few photos I've attached to the auction when I was selling the lens:
#1
Vivitar 28-200mm-6 by lens-test, on Flickr

#2
Vivitar 28-200mm-8 by lens-test, on Flickr

#3
Vivitar 28-200mm-5 by lens-test, on Flickr

#4
Vivitar 28-200mm-4 by lens-test, on Flickr

#5
Vivitar 28-200mm-1 by lens-test, on Flickr

#6
Vivitar 28-200mm-2 by lens-test, on Flickr

[Oldhand]

Yes, I am inclined to think that it might be your adapter that is the problem as you are getting the same poor results from both lenses.
I once had the Cosina version and it was not bad either, not as good as the Kobori.
I did a comparison between these as well as the Kiron version, and posted it here on the forum, but I am blowed if I can find it ATM
OH

PS - found it at last:

http://forum.mflenses.com/three-early-super-zooms-quite-pic-heavy-t60775,highlight,+early,start,15.html

The search engine for the forum is #@!*^^$
It does not like me anyway

[Lloydy]

I used the 28-200 Komine / Vivitar on my Pentax K10 for a long time, it was one of the first manual lenses I bought, and I had decent results from it. The one touch focusing was extremely sensitive on the 29-200 and I took to using a Vivitar 80-200 / 4 and a Series 1 24-48 / 3.8. I still have both lenses.

Both of these pictures were taken with the K10 back in 2009 and probably aren't processed much, almost certainly not sharpened.





I used the 28-200 a great deal, it was my walkabout lens for a long time.

[marcusBMG]

The PK to M4/3 adapter I am using on the G1 generally lets lenses focus slightly past infinity ....certainly something like that is going on because the pics are way better on my pentax. Not as good at 28mm as some of the ones posted but within the range of what one would expect...

Just put the smc 50mm on the g1 with the adapter just to check. Focus range etc entirely as expected.
I've been scrutinising the lenses and there is no sign of anything amiss with either. I will try to figure this out a bit more ...

Thanks for the comments and pics

[Oldhand]

[PhantomLord]

[Oldhand]

[marcusBMG]

On the pentax K5 the lenses behave normally. f3.5, 28mm CFD kobori top. I can see that a lens might be sensitive enough to the registration distance that the slightly imprecise M4/3 adapter has affected the focus zone that much but it's unexpected.




This was with the kobori at cfd, 28mm f3.5 resized - IQ not far off the other posted pics.

[philslizzy]

I've have had a few of the 28-200's and all have peformed exceptionally well. No out of focus when zooming. I have used mine for video on the NEX5/A6000 and its spot on. The one I got from Lloydy is marvellous. Can't fault it. For the price.

[Lloydy]

[attilio]

I recently bought the Kobori made (77x serial number) 28-200 mm version in Nikon mount for a few euros for use on my D600. The lens was in good mechanical shape, except that:

- The images were lacking contrast, which I solved by opening up the rear group from the lens tail and cleaning up the lenses with some spectacles cleaner. Now images are far more contrasty.

- By design, the minimum focusing distance at any focal length but 200 mm is 2.5 m, which makes this lens practically useless in a number of situations when closer focus is needed. I really felt I got a lemon, but luckily I solved this problem as follows. First, I opened up the lens as suggested at this link:

https://www.pentaxforums.com/userreviews/vivitar-28-200mm-f3-5-5-3.html

after having unscrewed the inner barrel with the focal lengths marks upon it, I removed the lens mount which is hold to the lens main body with just four screws. At that point, I turned the inner barrel until it could be extracted pulling towards the lens rear end. I found at this point that this inner barrel has a 1 cm prong at the end that usually stays hidden that prevents the lens from focusing closer than 2.5 m at shorter focal lengths. So, I took a small hacksaw and got rid of the prong, then recomposed the lens following the inverse procedure used to disassemble it. The lens now focuses < 2.5 m at any focal length. The only drawback is that for focal lengths < 70 mm you get some vignetting at the corners, at least on my D600, which is perhaps the ultimate reason the lens was prevented to focus < 2.5 m at < 200 mm. Below are some photos of the lens focusing at the center of the image at about 1.5 m and for focal lengths of 28, 35, 50, 70, 100 and 135 mm: notice how the vignetting effect goes away as the focal length increases.