| Author: | | New Member Registered: February, 2019 Posts: 15 | | Review Date: November 10, 2023 | Recommended | Price: None indicated
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Less cost than "close focus" version | | Cons: | | | Sharpness: 8
Aberrations: 7
Bokeh: 7
Handling: 10
Value: 10
Camera Used: Film and full frame digital
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A nice little lens that gave me almost 100% exactly the same performance as the Vivitar "Komine" 28+++++ "close focus" lens but at 60% lower cost.
I bought a cheap broken version of this lens with a little dirt in the glass. I fixed it up and cleaned it up as best I could, and found that the only thing that was severely different to a "close focus" version was there was no close focus closer than the 30cm this lens allows. 30cm close proximity is pretty much standard for many good contemporary 28mm lenses of the time.
The minor differences were slightly weaker infinity wide open with a little more CA fringing in strong sunlight and high contrast, but who takes infinity shots wide open with a wide angle lens? This got much better at f4 and was sorted out by f5.6 and onwards where sharpness and image quality results were exactly the same.
| | | | | | | New Member Registered: December, 2020 Posts: 1 | | Review Date: May 6, 2023 | Recommended | Price: $55.00
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | cheap, small, excellent optical quality up to the extreme edges if the diaphragm is starting from 5.6 | | Cons: | Nothing for me | | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 10
Bokeh: 10
Handling: 10
Value: 10
Camera Used: Pentax super A, Lx me super, Ricoh Xr p, kr10, kr5super, Sony alpha
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I have several 28mm, (over the years I have developed a real obsession for this focal length and for the 100mm) I had seen tests of this lens in the 80s, both mtf and classic with optical and film sights and I was fascinated by it, but I have always preferred the originals. lately I found myself rediscovering analog photography abandoned at the beginning of the new millennium... and considering the low prices I bought a lot of them again... well, let's go back to 28mm... tried them all on Sony a7 and target trees front of the house, framing up to the most extreme edges. the 28 vivitar rivals the nikkor f2.8 and the pentax-m f2, (another fine specimen is the zuiko 28mm f2 8) the real difference can be found in the fall of light at the edges, but for some, this could be an incentive to creativity ... being a 28, which in any case must be used starting from f4 and normally the use is around f8/11 I find it useless to talk about bokeh ... (a 28mm is not designed to have a 9-blade blur ...) I would recommend this 28 for color filter photos as the mtf curve in tests was unaffected by the spectral length of the light
| | | | | New Member Registered: July, 2021 Posts: 1 | | Review Date: July 18, 2021 | Recommended | Price: $17.50
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | excellent colors | | Cons: | finicky focus ring | | Sharpness: 8
Aberrations: 8
Bokeh: 6
Handling: 6
Value: 9
Camera Used: fujifilm APC-S
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first day try - quite bright day
  | | | | | Veteran Member Registered: February, 2007 Location: Prevost, Quebec, Canada Posts: 508 | | Review Date: March 10, 2019 | Recommended | Price: $50.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Excellent build, Very sharp at F:5.6 and on, Easy to focus, No CA | | Cons: | A bit soft under F:2.8 but net improvement after... | |
Good lens for Landscape and general City walk-around lens. Soft but nice at F:2.8 but sharp at F:5.6 and very sharp at F:8. All metal lens, feels very solid and works well on a full frame body. Focus ring is smooth and precise. I would recommend if you can find one at a decent price.
| | | | | | | New Member Registered: June, 2017 Location: Montreal Posts: 23
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: July 5, 2017 | Recommended | Price: $35.00
| Rating: 7 |
| Pros: | Sharp past f4, cheap, well built | | Cons: | Very soft at f2.8 | | Sharpness: 7
Aberrations: 9
Bokeh: 8
Handling: 8
Value: 9
Camera Used: K-s2
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It's a lens that you really need to learn and play with it to appreciate. From the great vivitar 28mm bestiary I think mine is the K03.
It's well build, all metal. The focus ring is smooth, aperture ring clics well. However, this lens only is useful starting at f4. Wide open it's very soft.
It's a bit hard to focus in the viewfinder and it's not because of the ring (which is smooth) is just the way it looks in there is kinda flat. The pictures are not flat though so there is that going.
The more I use it the more I like it. Peak sharpness at f8.
For the price I paid can't really complain.
There is some charm to these old lenses.
| | | | | New Member Registered: November, 2013 Posts: 21 | | Review Date: November 4, 2013 | Recommended | Price: $50.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Sharp stopped down to f5.6 - f/8.0, small, easy to handle | | Cons: | Soft wide open | | Sharpness: 8
Aberrations: 7
Bokeh: 7
Handling: 9
Value: 8
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This lens is a Komine build. It was also very well cared for and arrived in its original packing. It showed no blemishes.
The aperture ring clicks solidly into place at each stop. The focus ring is very smooth. It is small and very light weight.
When I first received this lens, I was shooting it wide open and was less than impressed as it isn't very sharp. Even give that, I kept the lens since I needed something wider than a 50mm on a crop sensor.
This last Saturday, I was out taking photos of the local fall color and put it on to give me a wide field of view. Again I was shooting wide open for the first few captures and again it wasn't really impressive! I then was focusing on a brilliantly lit tree and decided to stop the lens down to keep from overexposing. This was an eye opener. You could even see the difference though the LED in live view (I use a Hoodloop as a focus aid). Once I got these downloaded and reviewed them on my large monitor, they were extremely sharp and had lots of contrast. This has changed my mind about this lens. It will spend a lot more time on my camera.
Camera used is a Canon 60D.
| | | | | Inactive Account Registered: February, 2012 Posts: 1 | | Review Date: August 9, 2013 | Recommended | Price: $20.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Very sharp and great contract at 5.6 | | Cons: | Soft at all other apertures | | Sharpness: 8
Aberrations: 7
Bokeh: 8
Handling: 8
Value: 9
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Very nice little lens, got it together with the smc k 55mm f1.8, vivitar series 1 70-210mm f3.5 and some filters voor only 50 euros, lucky day for me.
The lens is soft at almost all apertures, I mainly use it a 5.6, which gives real sharp contrasty images (much better than my smc m 28mm). At night the flare of city lights is very very ugly, so I'd advice to use a star filter.
sample images:
 | | | | | Site Supporter Registered: November, 2012 Location: North Wales Posts: 2,868 | | Review Date: November 18, 2012 | Recommended | Price: $25.00
| Rating: 6 |
| Pros: | its not a write off | | Cons: | everything else | | Sharpness: 6
Aberrations: 7
Bokeh: 7
Handling: 7
Value: 6
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Its worth consulting the "vivitar 28mm bestiary" given the multifarious plenitude of 28mm vivitars.
I'm pretty sure mine is ~ K03 in the list: 28xxxxx.
i've been distinctly disappointed with this. I ran a direct comparison with my pentax -M smc 28mm. I found this lens dull in look and nature: dull looking through the VF, dull in output colours and contrast. Sharpens up OK when stopped down but wide open on every count it was second best.
Although it is of the "solid metal" era its construction is actually cheap and unsophisticated.
I may have got a bad one.
UPDATE comparison with tokina RMC 28mm and Sigma miniwide have reinforced this assessment.
| | | | | New Member Registered: April, 2011 Location: Chicago Posts: 3 | | Review Date: May 12, 2011 | Recommended | Price: $7.50
| Rating: 7 |
| Pros: | Good color reproduction, quick f | | Cons: | Far off focusing a little shaky | |
Grabbed it at a garage sale on the body of an old Sears TLS, works well with it and I've just been shooting around. Might just be me and the inoperable light meter but far away things seem a little out of focused even when focused on to the correct depth. But it was a steal, and produces great colors and close ups; love the wide angle.
| | | | | Junior Member Registered: February, 2011 Location: California Posts: 32 | | Review Date: March 10, 2011 | Recommended | Price: $43.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Great IQ, Quality construction | | Cons: | No "A" setting | |
Started taking pictures and the closer I look at the pictures, the more I want to say 'oh!'. Works well with K-r.
| | | | | Veteran Member Registered: February, 2011 Location: Colorado, USA Posts: 830
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: March 7, 2011 | Recommended | Price: $30.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Good IQ at f5.6, Superb IQ at f8. Excellent build quality | | Cons: | Suffers at f16. Hard to find and quite expensive | |
Please note: Review and comments are merely my opinion about this one particular copy, which I purchased off eBay and tested on an APS-C dSLR.
I bought this lens off eBay. As far as I can tell, with the exception of close focusing capabilities the lens is optically identical to another Komine-made lens; the much sought after KA-Mount Vivitar 28mm f2.8 Close Focus/Wide Angle version.
I’ve been using this lens for over one month now on my K-x, and these have been my observations so far:
BUILD QUALITY: Solid metal construction and appears to be very well built with tight tolerances. Aperture ring snaps precisely into place with one click between all markings. Focus ring is exceptionally smooth and well damped. Front element is non-rotating but does extend out to a maximum of ~8.5mm.
IMAGE QUALITY: Color reproduction is relatively accurate. Images produced wide-open are a little on the soft side but still fairly decent. Purple fringing is also evident though not as bad as I thought it would be. IQ improves as aperture is stopped down particularly at f5.6. At f8, however, lens is quite impressive producing very sharp images with fine details all through entire frame even at 100% magnification. F16, on the other hand, is the lens’ weakest point. Indoor/Outdoor sample shots taken at minimum aperture were under exposed, blurry and rather unusable. Flare seems to be well controlled even with a strong light source just outside of the frame.
CONCLUSION: Out of all manufacturers who produced Vivitar 28mm lenses, this particular Wide-Angle version definitely falls into the “oldies-but-goodies” category. Unfortunately, due to its popularity lens has become somewhat rare even on eBay. If aperture is set between f5.6-f8, lens is capable of producing very impressive images. If manual focusing/aperture settings are not an issue then this Komine made Vivitar 28mm f2.8 Wide-Angle, in my opinion, would be a good choice for a normal prime on an APS-C dSLR. If it weren’t for the poor IQ at f16, I would’ve given this lens a higher score.
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