Koristka Salex Anastigmat 5 2/5 Inch f4.5 - Weird and Wonderous

I did some search on the web, but couldn't really find much information on this particular lens.  A lot of references of Koristka are on microscopes and binoculars.  In any case, it was quite easy to mount this lens on some tubes and focusing helicoid (two in fact, I will have a post on this later) to get the lens to focus to about 0.5 meters.  Normally, lenses like this have very long minimum focus distance.

When I first tested this lens, my first impression was that it's very soft, so soft in fact, that I think it might have been designed as a soft focus lens.  But I decided to go to Allen Garden to give it a go yesterday.  Unfortunately I was there about 35 minutes before it was closed and the light was fading fast, I had to shoot at high ISOs.

Koristka Salex Anastigmat 5 2/5 inch f4.5 with its own shutter and in exceptionally good shape.

As it turned out, this old Italian lens, though soft, has its charms.  It renders pictures with some very unique characters.  Yes, it's soft wide open, but it's so pleasing to look at, unlike the soft focus lenses that use uncorrected lens aberrations to achieve softness, which in most cases make the colours go wonky; this lens produces some of the most beautiful colours I have seen in an old lens. I think it will make a wonderful portrait lens.  Hopefully I will be able to take some portraits with it soon.

Blue, Pink and Yellow - Sony A7 & Koristka Salex Anastigmat 5 2/5 inch f4.5

Soft and Pretty  - Sony A7 & Koristka Salex Anastigmat 5 2/5 inch f4.5

Pomelo, shot through a pane of glass  - Sony A7 & Koristka Salex Anastigmat 5 2/5 inch f4.5