| Author: | | Veteran Member Registered: January, 2008 Location: Florida Posts: 514 | | Review Date: March 19, 2008 | Recommended | Price: $70.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Cheap, tough, good color reproduction, 1/2 stops | | Cons: | Heavy, very narrow DOF, built in hood | |
The most obvious feature is the built in hood. Somebody thought it was a good idea, but I find it gets in the way more than anything - especially if you change filters often like I do. The hood also retracts flush with the lens tube so you have to get a lens cap that fits into the lens opening if you store it without filter.
The pictures it produces are rich and colorful and reasonably sharp. The depth of field if very narrow so pictures focus right in on the subject of your frame.
The lens appears to be multi-coated but doesn't specify. Since it is not SMC intense light sources within the frame tend to cause flair at wide aperture.
Despite (and because of) narrow DOF a good portrait lens. In fact it was my preferred portrait lens because of the good color, and the longer focal length allowed some distance between photographer & model creating a more relaxed atmosphere.
After 30 years, still a great lens. Mine is a K mount.
 | | | | | | | Senior Member Registered: July, 2007 Location: York Region, ON Posts: 277
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: March 22, 2008 | Recommended | Price: $20.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Cost, Build, IQ, F2.8 | | Cons: | Weight | |
I got this lens along with my SMC-M 50mm and I am quite a big fan of it.
Build quality wise it is nice and solid, all metal, no wobbly parts and usable hood. Compared to the other reviewer I find the hood quite handy but I dont change filters that often.. (if ever).
IQ wise it performs much better than $20! Its noticeably sharper than my Tamron LD 70-300mm at 135mm, colours are more accurate and bokeh is above average, not butter smooth but not mirror lens like!
If there was one downside it would be the weight. Its a bit heavy compared to some other 135mm Ive held but not overly so and it balances quite nicely with my DL.
Overall it is a very nice lens and if you can get it for a decent price (under $50) I would highly recommend it if you dont have another prime in the range.
On a side note, I have the Pentax-K mount version which I think is a later model than the more common M42 mount version.
| | | | | Forum Member Registered: September, 2007 Location: Brantford, Ontario, Canada Posts: 77
2 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: April 1, 2008 | Recommended | Price: $25.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Saturated rich colours, beautiful bokeh, like a lot of great old glass images seem almost 3d | | Cons: | I have to break out the m42 adaptor for my K100D and full manual but small prices to pay | |
Pros......Saturated rich colours, beautiful bokeh, like a lot of great old glass images seem almost 3d
Cons......I have to break out the m42 adaptor for my K100D and full manual but small prices to pay
http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnsees/2173782461/ is a link to one of my wife's favorite pics of our girls.......taken with my m42 Vivitar 135mm.
Solid build, I don't mind the built in hood and makes great images.........whats not to like. Fast 2.8 does make for shallow DOF, but the bokeh is nice I think.
And they are always available for a few dollars on ebay! | | | | | Forum Member Registered: October, 2007 Location: Fort Worth, TX Posts: 78 | | Review Date: May 31, 2008 | Recommended | Price: $20.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | solid build, very usable wide open, good color | | Cons: | some CA (but it's sometimes BLUE!) | |
I had the Komine screwmount (M42) version that looks identical to the first picture above. Metal build, feels solid yet still relatively light in weight. I found it sitting dirty in a pawn shop, so I probably could've bought it for less --- still I'd say it's worth more than the $20 I paid!
o Built-in hood (usefulness debatable)
o 55mm filter thread
o min aperture 22, with half-steps to f/16
o min focusing distance ~5ft/1.5m
o 6 blades
Though the lens doesn't acquire good detail until stopped down to f4 or so, it provides very passable images even wide open. All the shots I've taken have come out great (when I can get them into focus -- manual focusing is not my forte, apparently  ). Purple fringing is generally not an issue (and at times is blue), except under extreme conditions (sample picture to exhibit this).
Overall, great lens, especially for the price.
in-camera conversion, normal tone, all settings 0, taken 5-30-08
| | | | | | | Forum Member Registered: September, 2008 Location: hawaii Posts: 62
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: April 7, 2009 | Recommended | Price: $10.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | very crisp, deep colors, no PF (on my tests) | | Cons: | m42, but some would rightly say it's a plus! | |
komine version:
can't believe how good this lens is. i've had it for a few days, and it beats the other 135's i've got hands down. crystal clear, sharp contrast, nice DOF. nice long throw on the focus ring, very nice movement, enough throw to get a tight focus in difficult shots. amazingly, this copy out shines my super tak 135, which makes me a bit sad, since that one produces such amazing shots and was one of my favorites. how many 135's can you really have?
i did luck out - found it on ebay, seller said it was never used, and they didn't know what kind of camera it was for, didn't want to check or send pics, so i just bid $10. turned out to be an m42 mount, and with my original adapter, it focuses to infinity just fine.
very nice!
| | | | | Otis Memorial Pentaxian Registered: March, 2007 Location: Vancouver (USA) Posts: 42,007
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: May 16, 2009 | Recommended | Price: $30.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Build, optical performance, good looking, price | | Cons: | M42 version requires k-mount adapter for most modern cameras | | Sharpness: 8
Aberrations: 8
Bokeh: 8
Handling: 8
Value: 10
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I own the early M-42 versions of this lens with the ribbed metal focus ring (photo here for those that are interested). According to the serial number it was made by Komine in 1971.
Build:- All metal
- Has M/A switch
- High quality satin lacquer finish
- Optics apparently single-coated
- 8-bladed iris
- 5 elements in 5 groups with 4.5 ft MFD
- Built-in lens hood
- Probably my prettiest lens
Handling:- Relatively light and compact
- Handles well on the K10D, but is particularly well-balanced on my older film bodies
- All controls are smooth
- Focus is a little on the viscous side (age?)
Optical Performance:- Better than average sharpness wide open
- Excellent sharpness and contrast stopped down
- Smooth bokeh
- Minimal CA and PF
- Surprisingly good resistance to flair
Note: The color scheme for the Komine-made version of this lens varies. My lens has red characters for the metric scale. Most others have green characters and I have seen one example with white.
Here are a few sample pics:
f/5.6
Full resolution (10 Megapixel) crop of above
Wide open (focus on far eye)
| | | | | Loyal Site Supporter Registered: March, 2007 Location: Toowoomba, Queensland Posts: 23,920 | | Review Date: September 11, 2009 | Recommended | Price: $20.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Sharp even at f/2.8, beautiful colour and contrast rendition | | Cons: | Prone to flare, CA | |
For a pre-digital lens, this is a solid performer on a digital camera.
I am blown away at times at the strong colour and microcontrast this little beauty is capable of.
There is not more to say than it is a very good manual lens that won't disappoint.
Solidly built and good optics, it is a keeper.
| | | | | Junior Member Registered: August, 2009 Location: Lexington, KY Posts: 30 | | Review Date: September 21, 2009 | Recommended | Price: $15.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Well built, built-in shade, good IQ, cheap, f/2.8 | | Cons: | Heavy, lenscap fits over shade (falls off easily) | | Sharpness: 8
Aberrations: 8
Bokeh: 8
Handling: 9
Value: 10
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The "minty" lens being reviewed was apparently made by Komine in 1971 and is tested on a 1.5X crop DSLR.
This lens is cheap -- nobody seems to want them -- but it isn't low quality.
Performance is fairly average in all respects (except price) for an f/2.8. Wide open, it is a little soft, but very usable. Here's an example:
That photo and the doll photo a couple of reviews above suggest that this lens works well close up. Mine did really well on a bellows, where aberrations tend to be way more visible. Actually, this is my favorite bellows lens. I thought that might change when I got a "real" macro lens, but after two real macros the answer is no -- this is a really great lens on a bellows. Of course, bellows are dust infusers so I now use my SMC Macro Takumar 100mm f/4 more, but this Vivitar on a bellows is very versatile and makes quite nice images even at magnifications greater than 1:1.
Nits to pick: The built-in shade is actually nice, but the lenscap fits over it, and hence falls off easily (you cannot put the cap on at all if a filter is on the lens). Mine makes a slight noise when you focus quickly -- presumably air moving in/out of the lens body -- the mechanical tolerances might be a little too tight.
Overall, this lens isn't quite as good as my 135mm f/3.5 Super Takumar in IQ, but it is a perfectly viable f/2.8 alternative at an amazingly low price.
Update: I now have a second one of these and it is hard to tell them apart, except the second one is looser and does not make noise when focusing.
PS: The photo apparently shows this lens with a Nikon F mount? Mine are M42.
| | | | | Forum Member Registered: August, 2010 Location: Belgium Posts: 60
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: September 26, 2010 | Recommended | Price: $10.00
| Rating: 6 |
| Pros: | Cheap, compact, decent IQ | | Cons: | Built-in lens hood is too easily sliding backwards | |
When reading this, please don't forget it's only my opinion about one sample of a lens.
There are numerous versions of this tele lens. Mine has a 28xxxxxx-type serial number, indicating it's been manufactured by Komine. Nevertheless, it quite differs from Stevebrot's sample (see his review here above) : mine has a 6-blade iris and a "diamonds" covered focus ring. It's probably a late M42 version.
This tele lens never impressed me and, as I'm not a big 135 mm user, it rests on the shelf most of the time.
As often with M42 thread mount lenses, early versions are better. Lens makers showed a tendancy to cut corners as years went on...
It's an overall decent lens, but nothing exciting. When I want to use a 135, I nearly always choose the Tair-11A, which is considerably bigger and heavier, but is characterful.
This lens is cheap, so I can recommend it, but it's probably better going for an early version.
 | | | | | Veteran Member Registered: January, 2010 Location: Montreal Posts: 761
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: December 3, 2010 | Recommended | Price: $70.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Sharp, extremely well built, retractable lens hood, smooth focus | | Cons: | a little heavy | |
First of all, this lens is difficult to evaluate as there is many different version. I have a komine built, with 8 apertures blades in m42 mount. The feeling of this lens is amazing. The focus ring is smooth as butter, the retractable lens hood is well made and slides nicely.
Performance :
Wide open, the lens performs very well. It's decently sharp, although you need to keep the shutter speed fast enough when hand held. The contrast and color saturation is also very good. I compared this lens with the pentax-m 135mm 3.5 and I can say that the vivitar performs much better. Wide open, I would say that both lens are equally sharp. However, the contrast is much better on the vivitar. It is however bigger than the pentax equivalent.
In action :
I used this lens mostly for indoor concerts and it handles purple fringing very well. It has not been a problem with this lens as it is often the case with the pentax-m 135mm 3.5 I had.
Here a three pictures I took with the lens. The first two are wide open, the last one I cannot confirm the aperture value.
At a concert :
(focus was no nailed but I think we can still see the potentiel of the lens) :
Second picture
This photo shows some purple cast, but nothing excessif. It was taken under very heavy purple, blue, red, etc. color spot.
A candid flower shot to illustrate the color reproduction
At the price the lens goes, I think it's a very suitable alternative to the slower Pentax 135mm 3.5. It performs really well wide open, isn't too heavy (although more than the Pentax-m 135 3.5) and is a pleasure to use because of its great build quality.
Buy it if you can find it a decent price. However, make sure you get a good version. I think the best ones are the komine built (serial number starting with 28....) with 8 aperture blades.
Hope it was informative!
| | | | | Forum Member Registered: November, 2010 Posts: 56
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: December 5, 2010 | Recommended | Price: None indicated
| Rating: 6 |
| Pros: | Fastness, solid build | | Cons: | Lens hood | |
As far as I know, this lens comes in a couple of different versions. Mine is a Komine-built one with a k-mount. What strikes oneself when picking up this lens is its weight. The lens feels quite heavy and I for one like that, although I know this might be an issue for some. It weighs almost 400 grams. The build is sturdy. I have accidently dropped mine and it still works fine. I’m not sure if the modern kit lens I got with the K-r when I bought it would have stood up to that test.
It is of course a manual lens, but my K-r seems to interact with it reasonably well. It does however have troubles metering the light correctly in low lit surroundings using a small aperture. In well lit conditions it seems to calculate the shutter speed reasonably well at all apertures. I do not know if this problem comes down to the lens or to the camera’s metering system.
The lens has a retractable lens hood. I’m not sure if that is good thing since it seems to get in the way most of the time. Furthermore it doesn’t proceed that far out which often makes you need to attach a more effective lens hood.
What I appreciate with this lens is its relative fastness, f2.8. This allows for a very shallow depth of field. The focus ring and aperture ring has the right feel to it in my view.
The lens produces sharp pictures with very good colours. My lens seems to have a quite neutral bokeh, that is the “circles of confusion” is evenly lit (not lighter in the middle nor towards the edges).
To sum up, this is a very good lens if one takes into account what you usually have to pay for it. A whole lot of value for your money.
| | | | | Forum Member Registered: April, 2011 Location: Gwynedd Posts: 93 | | Review Date: June 9, 2011 | Recommended | Price: $25.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Good Colour, sharpness and contrast, Outstaning build quality | | Cons: | Purple fringing at large apertures | |
As soon as I lifted this out of it's packaging I was impressed by the tank like build quality, everything feels spot on with this despite it's age. Mine is an early Komine example, looks just like the image above.
Optically it's good enough, just watch out for Purple fringing around harsh highlights up to F4. Wide open it also tends to have a ghostly effect around highlights, gives quite an otherworldly look to images.
I've put together a little selection of test images here.
(Please note I have an Olympus OM fit version, and the samples were shot on a Panasonic GH1)
I would definitely reccomend this lens for portraiture and other short tele work, provided ypu can avoid harsh highlights.
| | | | | Veteran Member Registered: April, 2011 Location: Cochrane, AB Posts: 508 | | Review Date: July 27, 2011 | Recommended | Price: $20.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Build quality, IQ, bokeh, focusing | | Cons: | heavy | |
I have the k-mount version of this lens it seems. A good length for a head and shoulders portrait or small dogs. Easy to focus at f2.8. Images are sharp from f2.8 up. On the cropped sensor works as a poor mans long telephoto.
Works well indoors on the K-x given enough light (from a large window on a cloudy day), although the distance required for decent composition means it should only be mounted for specific purposes.
For the cost, this is an excellent lens to have for pictures when you don't want to be in everybodies face or when you want to have a nice tight shot.
| | | | | New Member Registered: December, 2011 Posts: 13
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: December 23, 2011 | Recommended | Price: $70.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | sharpness , build quality , low price | | Cons: | none | | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 9
Bokeh: 9
Handling: 10
Value: 10
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I bought this Vivitar 135mm F2,8 ( 55mm filter thread , not the close focusing variant ) Komine made in K-mount and tested it against some steep competiton , Tamron 90mm DG F2,8 Macro and Pentax FA 200mm F2,8 . At F8 the Vivitar has excellent resolution , better than Pentax M 135mm F3,5 which I had for a while but the surprise is the very good image quality at F3.5 , as sharp as the FA 200 and very close to Tamron 90 , all tested at F3,5 in exactly the same conditions with Pentax K20D RAW image . Minimal loss of resolution at the corners which means that this is a high quality lens which can be used wide open with very good results , much better than Pentax-M 135 F3,5 and not much larger at 390g . Excellent mechanically , great handling and superior optics for 70 $ ( mint condition ) , isn't it lovely ? | | | | | New Member Registered: January, 2010 Posts: 23
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: November 8, 2012 | Recommended | Price: None indicated
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Sharpness | | Cons: | | | Sharpness: 9
Aberrations: 8
Bokeh: 8
Handling: 9
Value: 10
| |
Good sharpness and contrasty color. My copy is made by Komine (28xxxxxx), taking 55mm filter and has a handy retractable hood. Nice and highly economic mid-range lens if you could find a good copy.
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