Focal (K-Mart) 200/4.5 preset - Mystery lens ?

[luisalegria]

This is a K-Mart lens (for non-Americans, K-Mart is a cheaper department store chain than Sears), sold under their "Focal" store brand, I think sometime in the early 1970's. In US terms, this would have made it pretty much the cheapest of the cheap.



K-Mart sold many makes of lens under the "Focal" brand, some identifiable like the Tokinas, others not. I have no idea who made this old T2 preset, it does not really resemble any make I know, though it has a passing resemblance to a Komine series, and I may have seen one sold as a Beroflex.

Its quite a conventional design for what it is, basically a simple three-element "wundertute". Some odd things - it focuses closer than most 200mm's of the day (@6 feet/2m), but this is not marked. My Pentax K100D autoexposure requires a +2 EV setting for this across all apertures, which I have not seen before, and I can't see why - the lens is quite clean and unfogged. And the thing does not focus to infinity, which is probably due to an error in quality control. I could probably fix that.

Its actually a very decently sharp lens, if stopped down to 5.6 or so. Unfortunately, it was a foggy and colorless day, and not much of interest other than the birds.















The bird - well, another bird



crop -

[Bruce]

your right... a suprisingly sharp glass!

[montecarlo]

Very good.

There are many T mount lenses of 200mm with f:4.5 and 135mm with f:3.5 and/or f:2.8.

[poilu]

superb, it is the sharpest eye bird i have seen from you

[Orio]

Really a surprising lens.

[bawang]

Indeed this is really a surprise. But I have come to a conclusion. Any lens touched by luisalegria, will turn into gold. He is a master. Look at the other lens he recently resurrected, the high end Biotar 75/1.5 and the low end Triotar 135/4. Both produces magic. So is this Focal lens. Hmmmm.... I think I have a Focal somewhere in my box of junk.

I recently received what seemed to be a better condition (CZ) Jena S(onnar) 135/4 than his Triotar. The images I got from it was not even close to what we can see from luisalegria Triotar post. http://forum.mflenses.com/czj-triotar-135-4-exakta-total-overhaul-t9326.html. In my head, I even toyed with the idea of sending him my Jena S, so that he can touch it Oh well, it's the photographer that took the images. The lens/camera is just an extension of his eyes. I still have a lot to learn.

Hence my conclusion above.

Cheers.

[Attila]

Beautiful samples ! I love all of them!

[Helios]

Luis, I have a copy of this lens which is branded "Optomax" . I buyed it on ebay UK for nothing (5€ + p&p) . I made some trials on film which are on the "excellent" side . May be an earlier Cosina production ?

[Helios]

Sorry for the "echo" ...