Author: | | Site Supporter Registered: April, 2010 Location: Adelaide, South Australia Posts: 813 3 users found this helpful | Review Date: January 20, 2012 | Recommended | Price: $80.00
| Rating: 10 |
Pros: | Sharp, fast and very light, great macros | Cons: | MF, tricky focus wide open (use LV) | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 10
Bokeh: 10
Handling: 10
Value: 10
| | This is tha A01 variant of Vivitar 28mm lenses according to "The Great Vivitar Bestiary" TM, Copyright etc.
28mm is such a good focal length for APS-C cameras, it is just so versatile.
There are plenty of good F2.8 28mm lenses out there, but bokeh leaves a bit to be desired.
This lens at F2.0 has a tiny depth of focus, that really gives some outstanding bokeh effects. The slightly rounded blades also help at narrower apertures.
The only negative is that at F2.0 it is very hard to hit focus every time. But it is razor sharp when you nail it.
At F4 and above, edge to edge focus (and DOF) is very pleasing.
Colour rendition is a little "cool" but this is easily fixed with most editors.
Contrast is good, improved greatly when using a (generic) hood.
My copy tends to underexpose by 0.3EV, this too is easily compensated.
Overall I am pleased with the (Komine) image quality.
Edit:
I'm using it for Single in May. and have had to up my rating to 10, because the lens has NO weaknesses at all. 1st 2 Images were taken at F2.0 Dynamic range by Jackassp, on Flickr The colours of Autumn 3 by Jackassp, on Flickr Intensity by Jackassp, on Flickr
| | | | | Senior Member Registered: November, 2007 Location: Michigan Posts: 131 | | | | Inactive Account Registered: August, 2007 Location: Helsinki Posts: 2 | | | | New Member Registered: April, 2013 Posts: 3 1 user found this helpful | Review Date: April 12, 2015 | Recommended | Price: $100.00
| Rating: 10 |
Pros: | A-mount, Full frame ready, Bokeh, Sharp | Cons: | None | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 10
Bokeh: 10
Handling: 10
Value: 9
Camera Used: K-r
| | Hard to fault this lens in any way, prices are rising all the time so get one now before they reach flektogon levels. | | | | | Site Supporter Registered: February, 2012 Location: Southeastern Connecticut Posts: 816 1 user found this helpful | Review Date: August 13, 2015 | Recommended | Price: None indicated
| Rating: 10 |
Pros: | very sharp up close, vivid colors, nearly zero fringing | Cons: | not as sharp for wider shots | Sharpness: 9
Aberrations: 10
Bokeh: 9
Handling: 8
Value: 10
Camera Used: K5
| | I bought this based upon the reviews here, but had not really used it. I intended to sell it since there seems to be interest, but thought I'd give it a test before actually listing it.
I took it out at day's end. I was very impressed with its sharpness and its color rendition. I was especially impressed by the fact that I was shooting some metal objects in bright light and even the ones that were backlit had no purple or green fringing.
The one mild disappointment given that this is a pretty wide lens was an apparent fall off in sharpness when shooting landscape scenes. You can probably blame that on a photographer not really accustomed to manual lenses. And fall off, in this case, is relative to the stellar sharpness on near objects.
Sorry to the folks who have this lens on their wanted list....I'll be keeping it a little longer. | | | | Pentaxian Registered: April, 2009 Location: Madrid, Spain Posts: 10,852 2 users found this helpful | Review Date: September 20, 2015 | Recommended | Price: $60.00
| Rating: 9 |
Pros: | Rock-solid build quality, great feel, fast, sharp, 1:6 magnification | Cons: | A bit soft wide open, very heavy, contrast a bit low | | I got a pretty good deal on this lens a few years back but I haven't used it a huge amount because 28mm isn't really my favourite focal length on either digital or film.
However, this is a worthwhile lens to have, especially on film. It's built like a tank - the build quality is substantially more solid than that of Takumars or K or M series Pentax lenses. The aperture ring is a pleasure to turn, the clicks are perfect. Focus is silky smooth. The lens is very heavy for it's size.
On digital the lens lacks a bit of contrast in general, as you would expect from the old coatings. It's not the sharpest wide open but it's useable for many purposes and by f/4 it's very sharp indeed. When I compared this lens to a few Pentax 28mm primes I found this one had a bit of a green cast, but on automatic white balance it's not noticeable at all.
I have found this lens to be far more useful on film than on digital. On film it's a proper wide angle and the slight lack of sharpness wide open isn't noticeable at all. I love using it with B&W film especially and it allows for relatively slow film to be used in lower light than it's more common f/2.8 cousins. If it weren't so heavy it would have to vie with the M 35mm f/2 for the chance go travelling when I go.
If you're a film user I'd recommend going out of your way to get this lens, but on APS-C digital it's nice to have and can produce very pleasant results but it's nothing spectacular optically. Having said that, it's almost worth having just for the sheer pleasure of using such a well put-together item.
Digital shots:
f/4
IMGP5511a by Jonathan MacDonald, on Flickr
f/8
IMGP5508a by Jonathan MacDonald, on Flickr
Unknown aperture
IMGP7216a Viv28f2 by Jonathan MacDonald, on Flickr
Unknown aperture
IMGP7144a Viv28f2 by Jonathan MacDonald, on Flickr
Film shots:
f/2.4 or f/2.8
IMGP1192a by Jonathan MacDonald, on Flickr
f/2.4 or f/2.8
IMGP1195a by Jonathan MacDonald, on Flickr
| | | | Forum Member Registered: December, 2012 Location: Warsaw Posts: 83 | Review Date: April 22, 2016 | Recommended | Price: $200.00
| Rating: 10 |
Pros: | SHARP wide open, stunning MACRO, low light king, quality build, small, light. | Cons: | Rare, othervise NONE | | Superb lens! Exceptional sharpness wide open at closest range makes it great MACRO WIDE ANGLE lens indeed.
Seems sharper in comparison to my SMC-K 28mm f/3,5 which really surprised me. Slightly softer wide open, but still well usable. Colour rendering is slightly cooler than SMC-K 28mm f/3,5.
In low light with K5 at ISO 6400 gives very good results. I'm lucky to have this glass.
| | | | New Member Registered: February, 2019 Posts: 15 | Review Date: October 2, 2022 | Recommended | Price: $30.00
| Rating: N/A |
Pros: | Good imaging | Cons: | Internal parts glued together- difficult to service | Sharpness: 8
Aberrations: 7
Bokeh: 7
Handling: 10
Value: 7
Camera Used: Digital and film
| | A good, solidly made lens with good quality imaging potential.
The only really weak point of the 28+++++ Komine lens - as well as others in the Vivitar brand range - is that it is ridiculously difficult to take apart and clean out as it's from the late 20th Century when a lot of lenses were partly glued together. It's even awkward to get just the front glass out to clean out any condensation marks or fungus.
The 28+++++ version is often seen for sale with "close focus" around the rim of the lens being one of the best 28++++ versions. This basically offers as macro facility that is pretty good and so it jacks up the price for that writing on the lens front.
I checked the image quality to a Pentax f2.8 28mm lens (avoiding the weaker shorter barrel version), a Pentacon 30mm, a Takumar 28mm lens, a Zeiss Flektogon 35mm lens. All were in mint condition. The 28+++++ Vivitar equalled the Pentax 28mm and the Pentacon; giving almost identical results. It didn't equal the others, giving softer images at infinity across the f-stop range. It gave it's best at f5.6 to f11 with fairly good edges fairly close to on par with central image sharpness. Outside of that range it was fair-to-good but nothing to get excited about. Of course, you can always make things better in software editing, or with reliance on your on-board digital camera editing and compensation software; as many people do without announcing it.
All in all the 28+++++ "close focus" lens will take some good pictures, and some very good ones if you play with software editing. However, don't pay too much when there are better lenses out there.
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