Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Vivitar 28mm f2 for Nikon Ai-S Mount

Vivitar is (was) an interesting company. Now adays, it's known for cheap and crappy lenses and accessories. But, in its hay days of the 70s, they designed some of the best lenses of its time, and eventually become cult classics. They were never a manufacturing company, but they hired some very bright optical designers to create interesting lenses. These lenses were manufactured by many different companies, including Tokina, Schneider of Germany, Perkin Elmer of US, and Kino, Olympus, among others. Their most famous line was the Series 1. Lenses bearing this mark usually have excellent optical quality, like the Canon's L lenses.

Vivitar made Many versions of the 28mm focal length. I have owned the 28mm f2.8, 28mm f2.5, 28mm f1.9 (Series 1), 28mm f2.0. By the the best known of the 28mm is the Series 1 28mm f1.9, which I have in a Minolta MD mount.

Yesterday I acquired the 28mm f2 in Nikon Ai-S mount. Lens was made by Komine, as the serial # suggests (28xxxxx). This very compact lens has a 49mm filter thread, small for a lens this fast. A unique feature is the close focusing capabilities, which makes for some interesting effects. For one thing, you can actually get very defocused background if you shoot at minimum focus distance. In fact, the bokeh is not bad at all. At slightly longer distance, you can get a lot of background but still have a subject fill most of the frame.

For the couple dozen of shots I did last night, I am amazed at how sharp this lens is wide open! Definitely better than most 28mm lenses from its time. Will shoot some more to assess the image quality later on.


Untitled -- 5D & Vivitar 28mm f2 @ f2. Larger Picture.


Canadian Opera Company -- 5D & Vivitar 28mm f2 @ f2.5. Larger Picture.

6 comments:

  1. Hello, firstly I've just found your blog and I'm hooked. Secondly I'm relatively new to photography and have just bought myself a Vivitar 28mm f2.8 A1 Nikon lens and I don't really know how to use it. Tips would be great.
    Newbie

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    1. Hi, you didn't say what camera model you are using. Some Nikon consumer cameras do not support metering with old lenses and you really have to use it manual metering mode.

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  2. Hey, You have a nice blog and I really like your reviews. Can I use this lens on a Canon T2i? Also, what is a good price for this lens?

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    1. Glad you like the blog. The Nikon version of this lens can be used on the Canon T2i. Sorry I am not following the price of lenses any more. You can get a gauge on the price by checking eBay's completed transactions. Good luck.

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  3. Thanks for your reply but just wanted to know whether it is worth to pay $150 for this lens. I am new to photography and not very sure about the prices of old lenses.

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    Replies
    1. $150 is a little too high, in my opinion. I wouldn't buy it for more than $100.

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