[goatsNdonkey]

Here are a few shots taken with my Sears f/4 80-200mm zoom with my Pentax K110D dslr. I shoot film, too, but using the dslr does give online-postable results much more quickly.


Complete lens inscriptions:
Auto Zoom Sears Multi-coated 1:4.0 f=80-200mm (/)55 No.967557 | 202-737020 Korea


The lens is a K-mount without the "A" setting. F-tops 4 to 22. It's a one-touch zoom, meaning the main front collar handles both Zoom and Focus, and will creep forward if you lean forward with your hand off of it. When the ring between the aperture ring and the focus-zoom collar is twisted about 165-degrees, the "Macro" close-focusing function is accessed, according to the labels on the scale revealed, offering reproduction ratios between 1:5 and 1:16, depending on how the focus/zoom ring is adjusted.


Still-life, Not at maximum magnification. ISO 200-400, using K110's pop-up flash with something like f/8:









Silhouettes and shadows on widow shade. F4, ISO 200-400:




Backlit goat portrait. F4, IS0 800, 1/3000-4000. When I went outdoors, I opened the aperture and turned up the ISO to get high shutter speeds--it was breezy, critters move, and the K110 has no shake reduction:




Oscar the Donkey. (The Goat's name is Oregano) Similar specs, unless the shutter was a little slower, due to some shadows falling around Oscar and the side of the barn behind him:





First sky shot, I set the aperture wide open to set the exposure with the "AE-L" button, then unbeknownst to the K110 I stopped down to 5.6 to deepen the sky a tad:




Ford tractor shapes:




Power lines. Another shot with a lot of sky, so I believe I stopped down one setting from wide open:




Stubblefield. This one is shot wide open, focused on that rim of higher ground about a third back. It's funny, I shot the same scene at f22--what I would normally do with a landscape--but for some reason this one looks much better than the one that's sharper all over:






Well, these are mere snapshots compared to most of what is getting posted in this thread -- witness Dewman's recent geese on amazing waters! I'm not sure I have actually taken pictures with this lens before these test shots, due to my dislike of one-touch zooms. So far I am finding too much about it I like, so I'll have to keep it.

[goatsNdonkey]

I took a few more pictures around sunset to dusk on the same 70-200mm test day as the previous set. I had the aperture wide open to set the exposures, then stopped down one stop to deepen sky color. Focus was on infinity, leaving closer silhouetted branches progressively out of focus. As it got darker shutter speeds got slower, which was pretty slow for the moon shot. All of these hand-held.

















The next is a cropping of the image above. It's interesting to me how the digital iso 800 sky looks kind of grainy, but the moon image seems so much finer-grained and sharp (especially on the original 6mp image which I can't upload to my image hosting site):







Today, a couple more tests -- getting true MACRO out of this lens by reversing it. These two are from a few hand-held attempts, finding the exposure by trial-and-error varying the aperture and the number of layers of tissue I put over the K110S's pop-up flash. So these merely suggest what the reversed lens is capable of, rather than being prime examples of perfected images from this lens reversed:












The second stamp image shows the maximum magnification I could get out of the reversed Sears 80-200mm. Reversal + extension tubes would get more, of course. I haven't tried close-up lenses on it unreversed. I might yet try it unreversed, with my Takumar normal lens reversed on the front of it. I used to sometimes put the Takumar on the front of my screw-mount Vivitar 75-205 -- what fun that was

[Sagitta]

Stubblefield. This one is shot wide open, focused on that rim of higher ground about a third back. It's funny, I shot the same scene at f22--what I would normally do with a landscape--but for some reason this one looks much better than the one that's sharper all over

Thats no doubt diffraction kicking in. This is why some people refer to lenses having a 'sweet spot' - when you start stopping down past a certain point the image will start to noticeably degrade.

Using this calculator as an example (and bear with me, I haven't wrapped my brain around the tech side of this myself so I could be wrong on some things) your K200 at full resolution (10MP) shows it will start hitting diffraction around f/12.7. In theory anything shot after f/12.7 will start to degrade.

My K-3 meanwhile with its big honking modern 24MP sensor will start hitting diffraction for a full resolution image at f/8! What this basically boils down to is not much (unless you're pixel peeping or cropping 100%, the diffraction is mostly negligible since the end 'product' is going to be reduced in size anyway). Its kind of interesting to theorize what will happen though if they start shoving 40MP APS-C sensors in cameras - as diffraction will kick in somewhere down towards the f/5.6 range, which obviously could cause issues with lenses that start out at or close to that aperture wide open.

TL;DR version: Contrary to popular opinion old lenses work better on old digital cameras due to the sensors beings smaller. The caveat of course being those smaller images are limited in the ability to enlarge them because they're smaller, so it basically becomes a wash in the end.

[goatsNdonkey]

Sagitta, you are probably right about the diffraction. And degradation of an image with such fine branchy-ness may lead to something irritating, that the same scene portrayed with gentle blurring outside of the main plane of focus would not have. When I read some of the reviews of some of the reasonably-priced later lenses made for early digital SLRs -- plastic construction, plasticky feel, sometimes sticky feel, a menu of distortions....and so on -- it isn't surprising that some old film slr lenses could be better, especially if the smaller sensors hide some of their shortcomings.

[niceshot]

I won this off of Ebay along with another Korean Lens a 135mm Prospec . Any way I had to repair the aperture mechanism but that was easy. And in return I have a really sharp lens. Here is a shot I took this morning,this is my new bird lens

[goatsNdonkey]

niceshot, is that a flycatcher -- a peewee or phoebe? That 80-200 does have a lot of working room in front of the lens in its close focusing "macro" mode. I practically had to back out of the room to get that still-life shot of mine, Obviously, for a wider shot, like yours of this bird in the branches, it must have more than enough reach for some of the birds acclimated enough to humans to remain perched 10-20 feet away. Makes me think it would be a good lens for chickadees.

[Aaron28]

aperture mechanism

very nice....I have 2 lenses that need aperture work....vivtar series 1 28-105/2.8(would be very good) and a 135/2.8(which would be ok)

[niceshot]

on the 135 did you take it apart? and on the series one it is the spring that attaches to the mount

---------- Post added 01-21-16 at 06:56 PM ----------

niceshot, is that a flycatcher -- a peewee or phoebe? That 80-200 does have a lot of working room in front of the lens in its close focusing "macro" mode. I practically had to back out of the room to get that still-life shot of mine, Obviously, for a wider shot, like yours of this bird in the branches, it must have more than enough reach for some of the birds acclimated enough to humans to remain perched 10-20 feet away. Makes me think it would be a good lens for chickadees.

Especially on the Beach

[Aaron28]

on the 135 did you take it apar

sorta but too much need to dig deeper but don't know how......i'll hafta to see about the spring to mount on the vivitar.....did not come across it when I had it somewhat apart
the little ball bearing for the stop click can be a bear!

[niceshot]

The 135 is easy to fix, the vivitar is a pain in da rump . the vivitar will still meter in the a mode though. just try it

[Aaron28]

just try it

I use it....stuck wide open.....think it would rock if I could stop it down

[niceshot]

which one is stuck wide open?

[Aaron28]

stuck wide open

both are

[niceshot]

ouch, necessitates a rebuild

[Aaron28]

ouch, necessitates a rebuild

yeh I think so.... I have fixed some others digging as deep as I did with no problems......