[zzeitg]

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Though i will not write any more words if the readers don't confirm that they find all this useful/interesting

Confirmed! For me it's very interesting and enjoyable reading.

[dadipentak]

I answer here, cause i think that this kind of exchanges could be of some interest to a good number of forum users.
Though i will not write any more words if the readers don't confirm that they find all this useful/interesting

Oh, if there you have more observations and insights to share, by all means, please don't hold back!

[monochrome]

2 fewer than yesterday.

[ffking]

I've just noticed that I currently have more lenses for the 67 (6) than for 35mm/ff ( currently only 4), or APSC (2) - not a huge total either way, but the investment was clearly biased to 67.

[richardwong]

Hi Paolo,

I probably should respond via PM, but in the oft chance that others may have an interest I'll post it here. As an attempt to not annoy the rest of the group I'll break my response into smaller, easier to ignore, segments

While I used to part with lenses either through trade or sale, over the years I have found it harder and harder to do so. Often times I'll think of getting rid of a lens and I'll look back and see a shot I had taken with such and such a lens and decide to keep it, I guess I've grown too attached to them. I didn't set out to amass this collection, but I would hear someone talk about how good or unique a lens was and I would want to see for myself.

I used to have a fondness for Vivitar Series 1 lenses and I had a few more of them at one time. Not sure why I never accuired the 90-180, I did look for one just never found one before I moved on. The 105 macro is still my favorite of the bunch and I still use that quite often with film (not as much on digital since I got the DA100WR but it is unmatched in manual focusing) Originally the Solid Cats were very nice for photos of the moon but fell very short in day light shooting. The problem turned out to be the 1" deep hood can't effectively shade the front glass and unfortunately the lens diameter is somewhere around 106mm. The solution that I found was to use a lens hood from a Mamiya 500mm lens and it made a huge difference! As you can see I did go through a "mirror lens" phase at one point. The Vivitar 70-210 was one of my favorite lenses but to be honest I prefer the Pentax-A 70-210 (even with the fixed F4) they are macros at different ends of the zoom range but I find that the Pentax has less aberrations and blooming at the wider aperture, but as with anything it could be the samples that I have.

---------- Post added 03-09-16 at 08:54 AM ----------

I have a fondness for Russian lenses as well, some of them are quite nice (I think that the MTO 3M-5CA 500 is probably the best mirror lens that I own) The Helios 58's each have their own a slightly different bokeh. The 44-3M is actually a macro version where the optical component can be detached from the helicoid, I think originally for use on a bellows. My Tair-3S came with a complete Photosnaiper set and is a really nice 300mm lens, the Zenit-12s camera was actually kind of quirky and the light meter has since died, but the lens itself works great on digital.

The Porst 135mm/1.8 is a very nice lens which sometimes doesn't get the best of reviews for contrast and sharpness (although I find a lot of sharpness complaints for most fast glass usually stems from focusing issues with such a narrow depth of field rather than any fault of the glass itself). As with most lenses, a lens shade can do wonders and this lens really requires a deep hood to get the most out of it. The Berolina lens is a monster of a lens (similar in appearance to the Vivitar 135 1.5 and actually the same rebranded lens as the Vivtar 135 1.8 preset) a shame that it is not sharper wide open as it does really well stopped down.

Most of my actual duplicates were replacements for lenses that I liked that might have gotten damaged it some way from use, most are still perfectly functional but I just never got around to getting rid of all of them. The exception are the 55mm lenses which I usually accuired with a camera body.

---------- Post added 03-09-16 at 08:56 AM ----------

I did rid myself of many of my K series lenses and (apart from the two 55/1.8 lenses which came with my KX and MX cameras) I tried to keep only the ones that were functionally different than others that I accquired. For instance the 135 and 200 F2.5 lenses while I have several other lenses in these focal lengths these two rendered differnt enough to warrant keeping. The M series I kept due to their size, with the exception of the DA series these are some of the smallest lenses in their respective focal lengths and are a perfect balance on the MX. When I got my first A series lenses I didn't even own a camera that could benefit from the contacts. I was mostly using a Pentax LX and a Ricoh XR-7 at the time for 35mm work and neither had contacts, but that changed when I got the PZ-1 and the A series, along with preset lenses, are easiest manual lenses to use on digital.

As for macro, to get beyond 1:1 I have several bellows units from Pentax screw mount to the Bellows-K as well as my favorite a unique Spiratone SST tilt shift bellows. I have reverse adapters, extension tubes, helicoids, macro attachments, etc. I used to use reversed wide angle lenses (that's why I still like to have an aperture ring on my lenses) but now I mainly use enlarger lenses like the El-Nikkors (forward and reversed) or if I really want to get close I'll use microscope objective lenses (you need a lot of light for these) and usually some sort of focus stacking.

Steve

Keep it coming Steve, these are great stories we can all learn from.
Thanks!

[zzeitg]

+1 as my "new" K 135mm f2.5 just arrived

[bertwert]

Only 8...

[boriscleto]

Only 8...

I only had three at your age...

[monochrome]

I only had three at your age...

I have more lenses than I've had birthdays.

[bertwert]

I have more lenses than I've had birthdays.

Getting there...

Probably by the time I double my current lenses, it'll be about right?

Actually most people do, we only have one birthday

[monochrome]

I have more lenses than I've had birthdays.

Getting there...

Probably by the time I double my current lenses, it'll be about right?

Actually most people do, we only have one birthday

Parties.

[cyberjunkie]

+1 as my "new" K 135mm f2.5 just arrived

Great lens!
Bought it looong ago, in place of the poor 135mm f/3.5 "Takumar K" with no SMC.
So good that i refrained from buying the f/2.8 AF (F or FA series) back at the turn of the century, when the price of Pentax lenses with electric contacts was definitely cheaper than today.
To my knowledge, the lens you just acquired is the best Pentax, price/performance wise.
The F/FA versions, already mentioned, and the A Star f/1.8 are optically better, but the former is not very common (thus high-priced), and the latter is a dream lens.
All the others, 120mm to 150mm, are not as good.
Two caveats: there is no retractable lens hood, and at close range is worse than at infinity (as most heavily asymmetrical optics with no floating element).
Whatever... well done, enjoy your new lens and be happy you purchased it now!
With the new K-1 a 135mm with full frame coverage will be more desirable

cheers

P

[zzeitg]

Great lens!
Bought it looong ago, in place of the poor 135mm f/3.5 "Takumar K" with no SMC.
So good that i refrained from buying the f/2.8 AF (F or FA series) back at the turn of the century, when the price of Pentax lenses with electric contacts was definitely cheaper than today.
To my knowledge, the lens you just acquired is the best Pentax, price/performance wise.
The F/FA versions, already mentioned, and the A Star f/1.8 are optically better, but the former is not very common (thus high-priced), and the latter is a dream lens.
All the others, 120mm to 150mm, are not as good.
Two caveats: there is no retractable lens hood, and at close range is worse than at infinity (as most heavily asymmetrical optics with no floating element).
Whatever... well done, enjoy your new lens and be happy you purchased it now!
With the new K-1 a 135mm with full frame coverage will be more desirable

cheers

P

I already own F135 f2.8, Samyang 135mm f2 and two old lenses (Soviet Tair-11a with 20 aperture blades and German Pentacon, preset lens with 15 aperture blades, both M42 lenses, 135mm f2.8).
Yes, A* f1.8 is a dream lens, nothing more. Today's prices are extreme.There are several more dream lenses, like F*/FA* 250-600 or FA*200 f4 macro, but...


It's also true that the availability of FF lenses, well at least on eBay, is worse and worse every month. Luckily I already have most of the lenses which I found interesting. In the future I'll probably focus more on East-German lenses, there are some with very characteristic way of rendering.


I really regret that I missed this wonderful Komura lens (and I'm afraid there won't be any second chance) - Komura 2 135 135mm F2 Sankyo Kohki M42 M 42 Adaptable EOS NEX MFT F Hidalgo | eBay
But that's life.

[Odinz]

A Star is so beautiful and valuable that i never had the courage to carry the lens under the rain or in a difficult environment, like out in the mud of a swamp to shoot birds.

I agree completely, don't think I ever took any of my star lenses out into any harsh environments, but I did take most of my others. Never used to give it too much thought, oh I would try to protect them from hard pouring rain, but I would take my camera and lenses out into rain, snow, sleet, huge temperature changes such as from a cold air-conditioned hotel room onto a warm humid beach and vice versa. Of course I would wipe the camera and lens down afterward but I never worried about things that I do today like fungus (oddly very few of my lenses ever acquired fungus although many of my early enlarger lenses did). The only thing that I ever really took care with was blowing sand. If I was somewhere with blowing sand, like on a beach, the lens would always have a filter (that usually was trash afterward) and I would do my best to keep the camera and lens covered to try to keep out the sand (almost impossible).

but i had just acquired the famous Pentax/Zeiss f/2 K, so i wrongly thought i didn't need another 28mm.

The K 28/f2 is one of the lenses that I had wished I had gotten but never did.

I don't like mirror lenses. But they have one advantage: size! About MF zooms, i see you have both the Pentax-A 70-210mm f/4 and the 35-135mm f/3.5. For the current price, both are a must have. Electric contacts, awesome build, sharp, easy manual focusing, perfect for catch-in technique.

You're right about the size, I gained my attraction to mirror lenses thanks to an article written by Herbert Keppler in Modern Photography sometime in the early 80’s. He had seemed to really favor mirror lenses and had written about how you could have a nice and long telephoto in a very compact package. (their flaws were definitely less apparent on film then they are on digital) As I was heading down to Florida that summer for one of the very first Space Shuttle launches I mistakenly thought that this would be the ticket. The longest standard lens I owned at the time was 300mm and I went out a bought an early Sigma 1000mm mirror lenses (F13.5 labeled ‘Macro’). It turned out, that while it was actually pretty good for shooting the shuttle on the ground, (where it was most of the time anyway as I think the launch was delayed four times that month) I was totally unprepared to try and track it in flight with the 1000mm mounted to the three way head on my tripod. I did spend quite awhile trying to find the perfect mirror lens, but in the end I realized that I have many other quality lenses that while shorter can be enlarged or shot with a teleconverter and still rival the mirrors. As such I hardly used any of my mirror lenses for anything other than the occasional moon or planet shot in probably the last twenty years,(Also the reason I no longer own any mirror lens shorter than 400mm) the exception being the MTO 500 3M-5CA which is small enough to throw in a bag ‘just because’ and it actually can produce fairly sharp contrasty shots (even better if you can avoid the doughnuts) I've always thought that this was due to the secondary mirror of the two MTO's I have being curved just like the main lens. It could have nothing at all to do with that, but that was my thinking in any event. The ones from Tamron, Tokina and Sigma aren't too shabby either but it really depends on the copy of the lens you get. I have seen greater variation between copies of the same model mirror lens that just about any other type of optic. The Pentax 400-600 could have been a nice lens if it wasn't for the F8-12 aperture (never calculated the actual F-stop) It is sharp, small and built probably better than any of my others (not counting the build of the solid cats), but the lens is just too dark to be able to focus effectively. Now if I could find an FA* 600 or better yet an FA* 250-600 I’d be happy (but I still have to be able to afford food).

And as for older zoom lenses, I too have avoided most of them, they just weren’t in the league of today’s zooms and as such I haven't kept many of the ones that I had. The A zooms though (35-70, 70-210 & 35-105) still get plenty of use on film as well as digital. Actually my LX is stored in it's bag with the 35-105 attached.

If your tilt-shift bellows is the one i think it is... well, my compliments! It's a dwarfed monorail camera It was sold with different names, and it's not easy to find, not to mention the price...

It probably is the same one you’re thinking of, it’s the Spiratone Bellows Master SST (mine is actually K mount) and it was sold under different names and is indeed just like a miniature monorail camera. I saw it in the back of a magazine and thought I could use it to accomplish the same thing as my 4x5 camera without all of the size (didn’t quite work out that way). I seem to remember it was relatively expensive even back when I got it, I don’t even know what it would run to replace it today. I remember using it to mostly photograph my architectural models back in the day (don’t build them any more) but now I use it of course for macro work. It did work better on film SLR’s rather than DSLR’s because the size and the grip can get in the way of the movements (attaching an extension tube to the camera can help with this). I too use an RMS adapter for mounting microscope objectives to the bellows or even directly to the camera body.

For hand held macros I use either the DFA50 or the DFA100WR if I’m going auto focus, the A50 or Vivitar 105 for manual focusing and the Takumar 50 preset (a real gem and 1:1) if I’m carrying my M42 setup. I have the DA35macro which in theory should be almost the same on a crop sensor as the 50mm is on film, but even though it’s a fantastic lens, for some reason I hardly ever use it for macro. I have always wanted to get the Sigma 180 and of course the A*200, I still look at both of them occasionally but I never have pulled the trigger on either of these.

Steve

[surfar]

Too many, been said before I know...60+ K mounts then add the Qs...m42...m4/3 ,,,NXs....TOO MANY!