Old 350mm lens - VINSON INA - anyone heard of it?

[Omaroo]

Hey all.. anyone heard of these lenses before? They're made in Japan and look as though they might have been made in the 70's or thereabouts. Being f/5.5 it isn't particularly bright - but for the money it may have been comparable to Tamrons of the period. Its focal length is 350mm. I've tried to Google it, but don't come back with much. I'd be interested to hear what "Vinson INA" was as a company.

Jenny found this particular lens at a trash & treasure market on the weekend. She paid $25 for it and when she brought it home with her I asked her why she bought junk home. LOL!

Anyway - after a clean up and fitment of a Nikon T-Ring I gave it a shot or six and was reasonably impressed. It caters to no automatic features of course, but in manual mode it has a nice feature in that the aperture ring is split in two - one controls the set aperture and the other allows aperture preview by operating the iris from f/5.5 all the way down to the set aperture. Neat!

I gave it a go on a couple of distance objects with the trusty D40. I might use it a bit more often Not bad for $25

Here's a couple of the lens itself, and one of a house about 250m away.