New Member Registered: January, 2017 Posts: 19 | | Review Date: June 29, 2017 | Recommended | Price: None indicated
| Rating: 9 |
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This Spiratone can also be found from Sigma's YS-catalog as it is made by Sigma.
It's well built, nice sized ultra-wide lens with nice light power and great focus scale - it can focus to 17cm (about 6-7cm from the front element) and thus it can even give some bokeh. Distortions aren't bad either.
This isn't one of the sharpest lens around and comparing the sharpness for example to a modern Sigma puts it into shame. It gets better from ~f5.6 anyhow. The colours or contrast are also lame. But in fact, these faults make the photos look like old film time paper photos and I really like them that way! A lovely lens.
A close focus snapshot example:
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Junior Member Registered: August, 2009 Location: Lexington, KY Posts: 30
2 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: January 5, 2011 | Recommended | Price: $60.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Ultra-wide, close focus, build | | Cons: | Low contrast, competes with APS-C kit lenses | | Sharpness: 7
Aberrations: 8
Bokeh: 7
Handling: 10
Value: 8
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This reviews a lens with perfect glass on a 14MP APS-C body. The $60 cost included shipping, although pricing often goes much higher.
When new, this was clearly a very good ultra wide for 135 film. Unfortunately, it's not so wide on APS-C, and kit lenses are pretty good at 18mm. It also isn't faster than most kit lenses, at f/3.5, nor does it autofocus. So, the question is does it do anything better?
Well, yes. It can focus really close while producing acceptable IQ:
As that image shows, it can focus close enough to produce significant bokeh despite being 18mm and f/3.5. Unfortunately, the PSF has a bit of a bright edge, so the bokeh isn't all that smooth.
Although IQ isn't terrible for an ultra wide, contrast and color saturation are both low. This isn't as much of a problem for digital, and may even help avoid saturation, but most images will need a little post processing. Sharpness near the edges is pretty bad wide open -- you don't want to shoot test charts with this lens. There is also fairly obvious barrel distortion, although that's not hard to correct in post processing.
When it was new, as flawed as the images are, you couldn't do much better with anything this wide. Now, if you are not shooting on full frame and don't need to focus this close, there isn't much reason to get this instead of using your kit lens. That said, I really like this lens despite all the IQ issues. It's probably a 6-7 in IQ and 10 in build, with smoothness that puts the average Takumar to shame. Thus, I recommend it, with various reservations, if it costs under $100 or so.
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