Site Supporter Registered: March, 2007 Location: Tucson Posts: 292
4 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: November 5, 2018 | Recommended | Price: $35.00
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | Light, sharp, constant aperture, close focusing | | Cons: | | | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 10
Bokeh: 10
Handling: 10
Value: 10
Camera Used: K-3
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I've been using this lens for about a year now, and am constantly amazed by its output. Here's an example at 210mm, F13, 1/2000s, ISO 3200
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New Member Registered: November, 2013 Posts: 14 | | Review Date: May 21, 2016 | Recommended | Price: $35.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | very good sharpness | | Cons: | a few weak contrast wide open | | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 9
Bokeh: 9
Handling: 8
Value: 9
Camera Used: kx k200 sfx mz5 z20p
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++ good optical construction
++ very good sharpness
+ stopped down to f8-11 high contrast (wide open a few weak)
++ nice colors
++ fery few CA's in corners
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Site Supporter Registered: May, 2014 Location: Linz Posts: 3,098
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: December 6, 2015 | Recommended | Price: None indicated
| Rating: 7 |
| Pros: | solid metal construction, A-setting, good IQ between 70-150mm | | Cons: | slow max. aperture, corner sharpness above 150mm is weak, rotating front element when focusing | | Sharpness: 7
Aberrations: 6
Bokeh: 7
Handling: 7
Value: 6
Camera Used: K-3
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Despite beeing built like a tank this lens balances well on a K-3. The A-setting allowes the control of the aperture via the camera. There is also a slight resistance when zooming that makes this lens well to use.
The only two disadvantages according to convenience are:
1. the camera can't read the actual focal length (for SR).
2. the rotating front element when focusing complicates the usage of circular polarizing filters.
Up to ~150mm the lens shows good sharpness both in the center and corners, but its corner sharpness decreases evermore towards the 210mm focal length.
Tested against an SMC Pentax-F 1:4.5-5.6 100-300mm the pictures of the Vivitar show a little fewer contrast than the Pentax lens but its colors are at least as good.
At 100mm the lens shows good sharpness across the frame (aps-c). The Vivitar is slightly sharper in the corners than the Pentax is, but it's main advantage over the F 100-300mm are the much better controlled CA's even wide open.
At 200mm the Vivitar has weak corner sharpness but center sharpness is still decent. The Pentax lens shows slightly better corner sharpness than the Vivitar does. CAs of the Vivitar lens are also increased and they are neck and neck with the Pentax lens now. The Pentacon 200/4 unsurprisingly excels both lenses regarding sharpness (especially in the corners) and CA control.
The constant maximum aperture of 4.5 is sufficient for outdoor photography but you might have to crank up the ISO for indoor-usage (especially since stopping down a lens 1 or 2 stops is recommended for best sharpness) .
Last but not least when you are dealing with bright lightsources in the picture lens flare might become an issue (see sample picture) but it may also serve as an artistic effect.
If you have the chance to test this lens, do it, it might surprices you. As for the value I only rated it a 6 because there are many good and cheap lenses in the range of 70-210mm out there.
sample pictures:
@210mm f11, 15s, ISO 100: full image and 100% crop of a "macro" picture (no interessting subject but it will do for illustration)
@~100mm, f8.0, 30s, ISO 100, uncroped + unedited
 Spring Cleaning by Patrick Bittermann, auf Flickr
This picture was taken through the acrylic glass of a airplane with a polarising filter, so using this kind of filter is possible (in this case focus stayed at infinity):
 Linz by Patrick Bittermann, auf Flickr
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