If you’re interested in using other MF lenses have a look at the other reviews on the film, camera and lens review indextab.The company was founded in 1938 as Ponder and Best by Max Ponder and John Best. Hope you find this useful, thanks for looking. Whether it’s worth £1000+ for a Zeiss/Sony AF version with all the AF bells and whistles is entirely up to you…. However the macro mode is very useful so for sub £100 it’s worth it just for that – and the 70-100mm performance. Is this resolving 36MP? Well it’s good at 70mm, but past 100mm definitely not. I didn’t notice any flare without a lens hood except at 70mm where it was comparatively minor. Chromatic aberration is slight at f3.5 but gone by f5.6 across the zoom range. This isn’t unusual for telephoto zoom lenses where the long end lets things down and is provided as a sort of ‘free extra’ (or example, the relatively modern Canon 70-300 mm f4-5.6 is fine until 200mm then falls away quite fast). In ‘non-macro mode’ things are good at 70mm, deteriorate slightly by 135mm and the edges are starting to fall apart by 210mm but the centre holds up. The macro performance is outstandingly good if your camera is level, but pointing the camera downwards allows the zoom ring to creep forward. In conclusion then, this is a pretty good ‘old’ lens – especially if you can get it, as I did, for £10 (yes ten!) on Ebay. Closest ‘non-macro’ focus distance is around 2m/6ft.Īnd finally medium to far distance, and a change of subject from my normal test – Kingston Lacy House. My only criticism is that the focus mechanism could be more highly geared – sometimes it needed lots of focus ring turn to rack focus from infinity to close up – around 180 degrees. 1/400th for the 200mm long end of the zoom) and use your best shooting technique to avoid camera shake. There’s no image stabilisation so shutter priority is the best exposure mode – set twice the focal length e.g. In use the focus is easy (as with most MF lenses) using focus assist tools of the A7R’s EVF, though focussing gets more difficult as the focal length increases. It’s possibly one of the best finished lenses I’ve seen. The only major sign of age is that some of the yellow paint has flaked out of the etched ‘macro’ focus channel. Not well balanced at all, so support the lens at all times! This is a one touch zoom so pulling the focus ring back zooms in, rotating it focuses it, much faster than a two touch designs if rather under geared on the focus. It feels best to hold the lens rather than the camera when carrying it! If the build quality is anything to go by this lens is already a star – heavy at 967g (2lb 2.2 oz) and built to an extremely high standard of metal construction, it still feels precise, solid and reliable after 40 years, not surprising as this one was made by Kiron.
The earlier models were very highly regarded in the film days – at least equal to most camera manufacturer’s equivalents if not superior. The history of the Series 1 line is described nicely here – suffice to say avoid later models with variable apertures.
All shots taken in RAW and converted using DXO Optics 9 an ‘auto levels’ in Photoshop. It’s very different in terms of size and weight to the small Zuikos tested so far, but it showed some promise on the Canon 60D and I need to at least try to find a decent telephoto option before lashing out lots of cash on a Zeiss/Sony zoom. Continuing this series of mini-reviews of old MF lenses on the superb Sony A7R, this time it’s a Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm constant f3.5 aperture zoom from the 1970’s.