Many photographers think that good lenses are razor sharp lenses. I don’t agree with such statement. What is important for me is how lens is affecting final picture. Depending on type of photography I may prefer lens with strong vignetting or with soft corners. The real gems however are those lenses which creates uncommon pictures. I especially like wide aperture primes creating uncommon bokeh. When I saw sample images from Vivitar VMC Series 1 28mm F1.9 I had to buy it for its unique and busy bokeh.
I’ve mentioned earlier in Panagor 24mm lens test that Kino Precision is considered a manufacturer of one of best legacy lenses. One of brands these lenses were available under was Kiron. The only Kiron lens that I have is Kiron MC 28mm F2. It has very solid metal build and weights 255 grams without caps. Lets check its performance to see if it is really that good.
Every photographer probably has one or few focal lengths he likes most. There is also one focal length which may be most unpopular. Do you like 28mm primes? Or do you hate them? Many 28mm legacy lenses are often mentioned as low quality, opticaly poor and not worth buying. They however have one great feature… Low price. It may be one of cheapest wide angle available for your full frame mirrorles and/or film camera. In this and following tests we will take closer look at three legacy lenses and one recent zoom. Lets start with Minolta MD 28mm F2.8.
Sony offers Carl Zeiss standard zoom for full frame E-mount – Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar FE 24-70mm F4 ZA OSS. There are several reasons why it is chosen by users over 28-70mm F3.5-5.6 “kit” lens. To name most common ones: constant aperture, 24mm at wide end, Zeiss glass/coatings etc. Instead of doing one large test of this lens I’ll be posting separate parts for each standard focal length. For now we will check how it performs at 24mm to see how it compares to recenlty tested 24mm primes.