Who here uses vintage manual lens?

[ameerat42]

Hi All,

Happy New Year.
My macro lens is a Vivitar 105mm f2.5 made by Kiron in 1984 inthe third week and I cannot speak highly enough of it.

Regards,
.

Ta Gordon, and same to you. Mow, don't waste words singing the praises of that lens. Post a pic-or-two thereform.
Am (in amticipation).

[mongo]

Hi All,

Happy New Year.
My macro lens is a Vivitar 105mm f2.5 made by Kiron in 1984 inthe third week and I cannot speak highly enough of it.

Regards,
.

Mongo bought one of these new quite a few years ago as the age of the lens will imply. Mongo agrees - it was a superb macro/portrait lens. Mongo sold it to another AP member who was/is over the moon with it. Mongo had 4 other macros so one had to go and Mongo already had another 105 macro.

[gordon_l34]

Mongo bought one of these new quite a few years ago as the age of the lens will imply. Mongo agrees ## it was a superb macro/portrait lens. Mongo sold it to another AP member who was/is over the moon with it. Mongo had 4 other macros so one had to go and Mongo already had another 105 macro.

Hi Mongo,

The Vivitar actually replaced a Tamron 90mm f2.8, ( Ithink that is correct as I am over a thousand kilometers from it at the moment), Adaptall lens that now sits in the dehumidifier, unused, but not unloved!

Regards.

[Kym]

Anyone here have an 8mm f/3.5 Peleng fisheye (M42 mount)?
Reviews?

[scarlet artemis]

I have a pentax KR and 1.8 50mm lens similar to the one you have at the top, great for portraits and I get nice sharp photos with it. Love this forum, not many people seem to use Kr's and they don't seem to be too bad a camera

[Lance B]

When I shot with Pentax DSLR's up until 2010 when I switched to Nikon, I had quite a few of Pentax's legendary manual focus glass. I had possibly some of their best engineered manual focus lenses like:
## The A*200mm f2.8. So smooth to focus so beautifully engineered and crafted, just a lovely piece of glass and one lens I really do regret selling. It was just such a beautiful lens to manually focus, it was just good to sit and turn the focus ring and admire it's beautiful engineering. Absolutely superb IQ.
## A50mm f1.2. Another beautiful piece of engineering. Excellent IQ.
## A*300mm f4. This lens was in the same vein as the A*200mm f2.8, just a beautiful piece of engineering. Excellent IQ.
## A16mm f2.8 Fisheye. Another engineering beauty. Excellent IQ
## A100mm f2.8 macro. Another engineering beauty. Excellent IQ.
## A50mm f1.4. Another engineering beauty. Excellent IQ.
## A100mm f2.8 (non macro) beautifully engineered and very good IQ.

I wish I had the opportunity to be able to get their other two legendary lenses, the A*85mm f1.4 and the A*135mm f1.8 to match my A*200 f2.8, but alas, I could not afford them at the time and the examples that came up for sale were never up to the standard that I would have liked anyway. However, as luck would have it, no sooner than I switched to Nikon, and two superb examples of each lens came up on ebay for "realistic" prices. Unfortunately, I had to pass on them as I had sold off all my Pentax gear. Pentax made some of the best lenses there are, in their heyday, and they still make some superb glass nowadays. Their range of "A" K mount lenses and their Takumars are amongst the best ever made by anyone.

Now that I am with Nikon, I am after at least one of their legendary manual focus lenses to rekindle that affection for manual focus glass. Just the love of crafting a photo using those beautifully feeling manual focus lenses and the wonderful engineering that went into them.

[ameerat42]

When I shot with Pentax ... Unfortunately, I had to pass on them as I had sold off all my Pentax gear. Pentax made some of the best lenses there are, in their heyday, and they still make some superb glass nowadays. Their range of "A" K mount lenses and their Takumars are amongst the best ever made by anyone.

...to rekindle that affection for manual focus glass. Just the love of crafting a photo using those beautifully feeling manual focus lenses and the wonderful engineering that went into them...

Made me reflect on all this quality you let slip. Oh, Lance!, I say. (Though others might say "refract".)
Hm.

[Rattus79]

My macro lens is a Vivitar 105mm f2.5 made by Kiron in 1984 inthe third week and I cannot speak highly enough of it.

That reminds me that I have a Kiron 28-105 in a Nikon Mount I need to sell .... They reckoned that the Kiron lenses were easily as good as the Nikon made equivilents at the time, and the example I have is in mint condition. Looks like it was made yesterday!

[Lurchorama]

My favourite manual lens bar none is an old Pentacon 1.8 50mm m42 with an adapter.
Just something about the character of the lens I cant put my finger on that I love. And works really well with the K-01 and focus peaking.

[Liney]

Just wandering through the archives and thought I would drag this thread back into the daylight.

One of the reasons I went for a Pentax DSLR was so I could continue to use my one manual lenses. Only had a couple (Sicor 80 - 200, Takamur-A 28 - 80, and a Tamron 2X tele-converter) but I wanted to make use of them. It saved me buying a whole new set (especially as I'd had to negotiate with my domestic high command to get the money to buy the DSLR) and I find that they come in handy some times.

I recently tried macro recently by purchasing a cheap set of extension tubes, the aperture on the auto focus lenses I had either had to be full open or full closed so I went back to my manual lenses with an aperture ring. Great results so far

[jim]

Just wandering through the archives and thought I would drag this thread back into the daylight.

Very good work. Whatever happened to The Man from Mona? I miss him.

[erds]

One of the reasons I went for a Pentax DSLR was so I could continue to use my one manual lenses.

IMO, this is one of the best aspects of the Pentax system. I inherited a couple of (third-party) manual k-mount lenses...they weren't much chop in the IQ department, but were enjoyable to use. I've since collected a number of highly-regarded, manual primes in both k-mount and m42 - many of which can produce images that rival some of today's finest AF primes...for a fraction of the cost. And with the advent of mirrorless cameras, can be used on more systems with a simple adapter. The release of the Sony A7 was a godsend - to be able to use my lenses in all their FF glory was just magic!

[Kym]

50/1.7 SMC