Site Supporter Registered: November, 2012 Location: North Wales Posts: 2,868 | | Review Date: April 5, 2015 | Recommended | Price: $50.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Sharp from f8, almost no CA, "?best of class". | | Cons: | Long CFD, ticklish focus, slow, no hood. | | Sharpness: 9
Aberrations: 9
Bokeh: 8
Handling: 7
Value: 9
Camera Used: Pentax K5; Lumix G1; Samsung NX20
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I was hopeful that this vintage tamron (but soligor badged) lens might be of similar quality to my Nestar 400mm f6.9 and I have not been disappointed. With a lens this slow good performance wide open is the requirement and this lens has good sharpness from f8 with only a bit of improvement stopping down to f11. Typically dull contrast mind you, however also impressive is the relative lack of fringing/CA. As per the Nestar, I can suggest "as good as it gets" with the same caveat "for a lens of this age and type".
All good news, but the technical limitations have to be borne in mind, not least the close focus of ~ 20'/6.5m (it's better than the stated 8m, the focus travels well past the 8m mark). To get eg small birds to fill a major part of the frame you may well want to be closer than that. An extension tube is the recommended solution, a 12mm one reduced the CFD to 4.9m/16' (measured using my Lumix G1 + adapter). but the lens will of course no longer focus to infinity - I estimated the distant focus limit at around 20m with the 12mm extension. And the focussing at f8 is inherently ticklish, with a necessarily dull viewfinder, focus confirm might be more often off than on (my K5 did well actually) and, since 99% of shots shall be at f8-11, little DoF improvement from stopping down. I have a notion however that this lens shall work well with mirrorless cameras like my newly acquired upgrade to the Lumix G1, a samsung NX20, the EVF automatically compensating for low ambient light and/or slow lenses, and powerful magnification available to assist the focus (pics now below). The lens showed equal resolution on the G1 btw, it can clearly handle more pixels/pixel density, unlike others I have tried.
Also like my Nestar I ended up relubing the helicoid (easy enough to do, this lens easily separates into 4 sections, like the 350mm f5.6 t-mount), but hey its 50+ years old.
On balance I think I prefer my Nestar, the half a stop f6.9 vs f8 more useful than the extra 50mm 400mm vs 450mm and it can fit in my pocket/camera bag. But certainly recommended.
Refer to my reviews of the Nestar and the 400mm 6.3's for more general comments re t-mount, preset apertures. Now let some test pics do the talking.
My usual test shot of the castle tower.
crops: f8, f11, default pp from raw.
Sample bird pics, from RAW, pp in LR3.6, cropped and resized.
With Samsung NX20, jpg's, buffed some more in LR and resized.
More pics in 300mm lens club - posts: #16269; #16284.
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