| Author: | | Site Supporter Registered: July, 2020 Posts: 122
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: November 28, 2023 | Recommended | Price: $18.00
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | Sharp, well corrected, stunning colour resolution | | Cons: | None once you have a good copy | | Sharpness: 9
Aberrations: 10
Bokeh: 9
Handling: 10
Value: 10
Camera Used: K-S2, K200D
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I love this lens.
The motivation to write this review was looking through some forgotten RAW images before formatting my SD card.
Several leapt out at me straight away and reviewing the EXIF I saw the tell-tale 30mm focal length.
This delivers beautiful images SOOC, JPEGs already sing and RAW images need minimal processing. It's sharp but really it's the colour, tone and micro-contrast that stands out. Don't analyse too much though, just try one!
It does particulary well on extension tubes and my latest copy is also very good at infinity.
It helps that I find this focal length perfect for APS-C.
Before using it I was put off by the preset aperture but it actually makes it so easy.
You can preset a minimum apeture (eg. to prevent diffraction), open up the lens for focussing and then before shooting choose any aperture between wide open and the preset value. Continuous, no clicks and and quite accurate DOF in viewfinder.
I own two both Pentacons but different variations on the focussing ring. Both peform well but the first one I had was a just a bit looser and not quite as satisfying to operate. The second one looks like the late MOG Lydiths with a knurled focussing ring. Mechanically it seems better but it might just have had better treatment from previous owners.
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1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: April 3, 2019 | Recommended | Price: $8.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Cheap and cheerful, good sharpness and lovely to use. | | Cons: | Not found one yet. | | Sharpness: 9
Bokeh: 8
Handling: 10
Value: 10
Camera Used: Sony Nex-7
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Just arrived in the post today with a bag of camera stuff bought off eBay. Didn't notice it when buying but when I unwrapped it thought this worth checking out.
Mine appears to be older in that it has a metal knurled focus ring like the old Helios and Jupiter lenses. Lovely ten bladed aperture iris and just love the smooth no stop aperture ring.
I think this has just paid for the rest of the kit I got! 
Have been using and find it very easy. Noticed good sharpness and handling. Not noticed aberrations yet but haven't really been looking so far. Well worth buying if you can get at a good price.
| | | | | New Member Registered: November, 2013 Posts: 14 | | Review Date: December 8, 2018 | Recommended | Price: $45.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | very sharp lens without CA's | | Cons: | a few weak and not so sharp in the extreme corners | | Sharpness: 9
Aberrations: 10
Bokeh: 10
Handling: 8
Value: 9
Camera Used: k-5, k200d k-x k-s1 fuji x-t100 + x-e1
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inspite of its simple optical design with 5/5 elements a very good lens
++ very sharp lens in the center , stopped down a few
++ CA's not remarkable
++ very nice bokeh
++ nice color rendition
+ high contrast stopped down a few to 5.6-8 (Wide open some flare against the ligjht)
O/+a few weak and not so extreme sharp in the extreme corners /stopped down to f 11 sharp, too
optimal for portraits, street shootings, flowers etc. and video clips
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((extreme fine details with Fuji 24 MP system)) 170 lines /mm = 85 LP/mm in the center of the frame. This is a professional level.
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new Lydith 3.5/30 II by MEYER GÖRLITZ, GERMANY, extremely expensive, but in fact nearly the same optical design, only better coating !!!  (corners are not so sharp as the older version)
| | | | | Site Supporter Registered: May, 2015 Location: Hampshire Posts: 892
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: May 27, 2017 | Recommended | Price: $12.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Cheap but rather good. | | Cons: | None really. | | Sharpness: 8
Aberrations: 10
Bokeh: 9
Handling: 8
Value: 10
Camera Used: K-5
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My copy was bought in 1968 making it approximately 49 years old.
In better condition than I am but I am a lot older.
To be honest I've only had the lens a couple of days but the original owner stated that he bought it new in 1968. He had it fitted to his Zenit EM that he bought in 1986 that I also bought. Nice to have a good memory.
I have problems with wide lenses, just cannot appreciate them. I bought this because the Pentacon 29mm I had previously was a bit of a disappointment and from the reviews on the forum it seemed to be good.
It is quite good. Far better than the Pentacon 29mm I had. F3.5 is very usable.
No apparent aberrations, nice Bokeh, easy to use pre-selected aperture, quite close focussing with a flanged adapter and of course a depth of field that can mean the flanged adapter will get quite some distance in focus with narrow apertures.
This copy has some tiny black stuff on the front element, doesn't seem to affect the images until F16.. A quick attempt to remove it using lens cleaning fluid was unsuccessful, it does not seem to want to budge. The tiny screw on the front bezel is discoloured too, otherwise is in fair condition as described.
My best wide angle is probably my Pentax-M 28mm F3.5 and this is close. Well worth the small outlay.
| | | | | | | New Member Registered: February, 2015 Posts: 7
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: October 30, 2016 | Recommended | Price: None indicated
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Sharpness, great macro lens with rings | | Cons: | none for the price | | Sharpness: 8
Aberrations: 10
Bokeh: 7
Handling: 9
Value: 10
Camera Used: Pentax K5
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Great focal length for APSC and useful for many styles on Full frame also! Very underrated lens, renders beautifully and is as sharp as you'd ever need. I slapped some extension rings on it and was totally blown away by the performance as a macro lens. See the examples below for an idea. All taken with natural light only. These are full frame examples not cropped and the post processing was minimal. (Raw conversion and a slight boost to contrast.)
 | | | | | Pentaxian Registered: April, 2011 Location: Lost in translation ... Posts: 18,076
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: August 10, 2015 | Recommended | Price: None indicated
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Pre-set, sharp enough, MFD bokeh, nice build | | Cons: | Corners, not sharp enough wide open ... | | Sharpness: 8
Aberrations: 7
Bokeh: 9
Handling: 9
Value: 9
Camera Used: K-3, K-5, K-r
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Bonjour,
Well, I picked up a Pentacon pre-set version of this lens for 12€ delivered and could not be happier. I had seen some images and had put this lens on my "radar list" ... below are some sample images at or near MFD and f4.5 ... still learning this lens.
A "9" rating for this focus distance and its bokeh ... at longer distances its just "OK" in my books ... so a 7.5 score there.
 | | | | | Veteran Member Registered: January, 2012 Posts: 1,972
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: June 18, 2015 | Recommended | Price: $60.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Sharp (if not decentered !!) , vivid and truthfull coolours, no CA, bokeh, preset aperture, 10 blades, superb for video ! | | Cons: | Slow-ish (f3.5), prone to decentering issues ( my first copy was) | | Sharpness: 9
Aberrations: 10
Bokeh: 10
Handling: 9
Value: 9
Camera Used: K-01
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My experience with this lens started when I got into Meyer Optik lenses. Sadly, my first copy was badly decentered - and from what I see on-line *many* copies of this excellent lens are decentered. So I returned it and got myself a mint copy of Pentacon branded version. Sure I paid more, but buying from a reputable UK seller paid off ! My second copy is pristine, perfectly centered, sharp and contrasty.
I mainly use it for video, where it excels on my K-01. Thanks to lack of CA and other nasty aberrations, I can enjoy clean and pleasant footage. Also sharpness is excellent - I am confident to use it from wide open in either low light or bright conditions, but it does benefit from stopping down on sides and corners. By F8-11 it is perfectly sharp everywhere , but I rarely use it like this. Most pleasant quality it shows is in its bokeh , which truly is excellent and in itself makes the lens a worthy purchase.
But not only that! As other have pointed, lens will give you vivid and truthful colours, good contrast and pleasant rendering. Note however, that it is an old , vintage lens, so the field curvature will need you to think about your shot, to plan and position properly. Stopping down for landscapes is necessary to bring corners to the order. But for video you can easilly get away with wide open shooting.
All written above is not valid for de-centered lens, which will give you fuzzy sides, one side sharper than the other, and one side always somehow blurried. Ifg you get a lens like this - know it has been tampered with and was decentered.
To sum up : in VIDEO use , it is 10 out of 10 , for STILS, I would rate it 8 or 9 out of 10 - depends on the application. So overall it is a strong 9 for me.
Finally photos - here are some I got with this lens, nothing fancy, just some snaps - as I said earlier I mainly use it for video not stills.
You can click to see bigger version on flickr
F5.6 or F8
F5.6
F8 ?
F3.5 ( wide open)
F8 ?
F3.5 wide open
F8
F3.5 or F4 ?
 | | | | | Senior Member Registered: May, 2012 Posts: 140
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: October 17, 2013 | Recommended | Price: $10.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Good color, sharp, cheap | | Cons: | None (so far) | | Sharpness: 9
Aberrations: 9
Bokeh: 9
Handling: 8
Value: 10
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Just bought it recently but didn't use it for a while. Now that i have, I like it. It is really sharp, and produces nice colors. I have not used it in a full range of scenes yet, so I will update my review when i do, but for now, I like it alot. It defintely doesn't feel as good as a Takumar, and the pull-out aperture ring took a little getting used, but when i viewed the images on my computer, i was very pleasantly surprised. And for the price, how can you go wrong (or should i say, where do i get another?)?
| | | | | New Member Registered: January, 2016 Location: between Toulouse and Pyrenees Mountains Posts: 2 | | Review Date: January 3, 2016 | Recommended | Price: $50.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | compact and quite sharp at F8- F11, nice bokeh | | Cons: | old and need a cleaning | | Sharpness: 8
Aberrations: 7
Bokeh: 8
Handling: 8
Value: 8
Camera Used: K200D and K_5
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My version is not the same as the one featured for this article. My version is nearly the same as the zebra but black.
Mine is very old, dirty and used, which make it look older as it really is.
I will test it again when It will be cleaned.
no fungus but a lot af dust on it and sticky blades.
I like this lens quite much it's not my favourited but it's a great walkaround lens and not bad to make some landscape or details pictures.
Even if wide open it don't go faster than F3.5 Bokeh is smooth and very progressive (maybe the 10 blades effect)
So I recommend this lens.
I posted a quick review on my blog (reedited form my first blog in 2010)
http://www.lbel.net/pentacon-30mm-%C6%923-5-meyer-optik-gorlitz-lydith/ | | | | | New Member Registered: May, 2013 Location: Jakarta Posts: 2 | | Review Date: September 24, 2015 | Recommended | Price: $50.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | perfect for APSC, bokeh, price | | Cons: | fair sharpness wide open on full frame | | Sharpness: 8
Aberrations: 9
Bokeh: 9
Handling: 8
Value: 9
Camera Used: K5, A7
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i have both Pentacon and MOG Lydith, they are identically, for me the lens is perfect in APSC sensor, it has proportional bokeh and good sharpness in crop factor
in full frame sensor the sharpness become reducing related to more wide capture, but still ok, lens hood possibly good for any full frame capture
I am not sure this lens has a single or multi-coated, i try shoot test the Pentacon (not Lydith) against the sun and it's flare resistance is very good
here they are the samples shots:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/roe_groho/albums/72157643329442263 | | | | | New Member Registered: March, 2012 Posts: 22
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: February 10, 2013 | Recommended | Price: $40.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | rendition, vintage look, small | | Cons: | flare | | Sharpness: 8
Aberrations: 8
Bokeh: 8
Handling: 8
Value: 10
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Nice small lens. A lens that never disappoints. I have the first 10 blade's version of this lens and I like the colours and that special vintage look a lot. This lens is compact, light weight, cheap and quite sharp. Flares a lot if you try to shoot a strong light source.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/66317109@N06/sets/72157630179795558/
 | | | | | New Member Registered: August, 2010 Posts: 24 | | Review Date: November 1, 2012 | Recommended | Price: None indicated
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | sharp, color rending, light, unexpensive | | Cons: | in fact, f3.5 is not negative. | | Sharpness: 9
Bokeh: 7
Handling: 9
Value: 9
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A light, good using lens...
 | | | | | New Member Registered: July, 2012 Posts: 20 | | Review Date: July 24, 2012 | Recommended | Price: $10.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Easy to set aperture and focus, reasonably sharp | | Cons: | Limited to f/3.5, M42 fit | | Sharpness: 7
Aberrations: 7
Bokeh: 7
Handling: 9
Value: 9
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I got this lens off ebay UK for £6. Came complete with end caps and original box.
Unlike another reviewer I like the sprung pull out aperture pre-setting ring which makes focussing at full aperture very easy with no danger of aperture changing when you stop down to shoot.
I've only used it a couple of times so far so not had a chance to give it a full workout, however, I'm fairly happy with it.
I think it is sharper than the DAL 18-55 kit lens that came with my K-r so is well worth having in the lens collection - especially at the low price. It did need some adjustment of EV settings to get bright exposures though. However, this seems to be a common feature of old M42 lenses ?
If you can get one for less than $10 what have you got to lose ? At least it forces you to practice using AV and manual focussing, and all experience it worth it !
Peter
| | | | | Veteran Member Registered: August, 2007 Location: Shropshire, UK Posts: 1,114 | | Review Date: August 19, 2010 | Recommended | Price: $5.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Excellent colour rendering, it surprised me. Sharp enough as well. | | Cons: | A bit soft at the edges | |
I picked this lens up with a Zenit and a bunch of other lenses, I wanted the Industar that came with it, but it's a lens I keep using.
The focal length is good on my K10, and the colours are very very good.
The aperture ring is a fiddle to use, the front is spring loaded so you pull it away from the camera to pre set an apeture then you can focus wide open and just flick it back to the chosen aperture, or just set it wide open and smoothly stop down.
Use it correctly and it's a pain, do it the easy way and it's....easy!
Good lens for the money, there must be loads about so there's no reason to pay lots of money for one.
| | | | | New Member Registered: February, 2019 Posts: 15
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: March 22, 2019 | Not Recommended | Price: $25.00
| Rating: 7 |
| Pros: | Small and easy to use. Tiny focus turn. | | Cons: | Seriously over-inflated secondhand prices. Sometimes ruins mirror function (see review) | | Sharpness: 7
Aberrations: 7
Bokeh: 7
Handling: 6
Value: 7
Camera Used: Film
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I used this on film cameras when I had one.
Beware - Because it protrudes so far back into the camera at infinity, some versions tend to slightly snag the mirror of some SLR's including the ME Super and the earlier Pentax SP500 and SP1000 and some in the even earlier non-metering S range, but it does suit some films SLRs and some digital-SLRs. For the same reason it bangs against some conversion/adaptor rings. I'm surprised how little people mention this when so many people go on alarmingly about how fine it is. Do they all actually use it that much?
I had the f3.5-f22 30mm Meyer-Optik Zebra version that I bought cheaply. It wasn't worth the cheapness, to be honest. I loved the silent movement of the magnificent manual aperture ring. Great for filming as there is no clicking. There is no auto setting on the M42 screw mount; which is no problem at all as all you do is turn the aperture open to focus and then down to the f-stop you take the picture at. Simple. Focus has a lovely small turning circle to help faster focal adaptation for varying images. Small, neat and tidy. Age, use and abuse will obviously affect smoothness of aperture and focal adjustment, so live with it and enjoy. Some folks moan about the "zebra" metal exterior not being well made, but it's fine. Some photographers are so fussy about pointless things.
Not all the glass seems to have significant multicoating so there will be some ghosting and flare in some images. You may wish to pop on a multicoated skylight to help reduce that, even though some folks genuinely think a good multicoated filter increases reflection and ghosting. There is no scientific basis for this assumption if a quality multicoated filter is used. Or use a hood. Or use both. The age of some versions will show some swirly cleaning scratches on the front and rear element if previous owners used the lens for many years. Easy to take apart and clean out dust and muck (which does get in over the years due to the rather unusual build design) and to treat fungus growth if previous owners kept it badly.
Colour rendition is good but nothing special at most apertures. Make the image one stop darker than normal and things get better. Contrast is good, but not very good. Again, one stop darker and it's a better image. Across the range of f.4 to 11 images will have a sharpish centre and an "OK" periphery. The extreme edges are all right, but nothing brilliant. At f3.5 and f16-22 things are not dazzling, but definitely acceptable if you like a bit of fuzzy blur around the periphery. Very good for up close, Good for middle-distance, not very good for infinity or landscape images.
This lens is nice, but don't get sucked into paying more than $40 for one. Upwards of that and you are being taken for a ride, or you are gleefully jumping the ride. The sometimes high levels of online hype and price inflation that is sometimes linked to this lens are quite odd and very mysterious to me.
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