List Lenses for Testing or for Adding to Lens Sticky

[lost cat]

 

 

Yes it does. :) I don't have any direct exposure or image comparisons between those lenses.

Some have tested and compared it much more than me. You may want to ask Alex, he knows lenses much better than I, and he may have more experience with the D.O.I. 50mm.

 

Well there's this...

 

http://www.fotozones.com/live/index.php/topic/40343-uv-few-questions-about-legendary-jml-5035/?p=328935

 

[Cadmium]

Ah... 'back in the day'. :D

Yes, better than a Noflexar, but that is not a very good looking Noflexar curve if you ask me (thought the Noflexar had a slightly better curve than that one shows).

It is definitely worth $10 to just try it out. Have not tried it as such yet, but might be nice on the bellows.

And no, I have no connection with Surplus Shed, just thought of that lens and remembered that was where I got mine.

I have sometimes seen other D.O. lenses on eBay, but that is the only one I have.

[lost cat]

This Kyoei Lens, is quite poor for UV:

 

There are a few rangefinder version of these on the bay with a BIN of ~$150

Kuribayashi (and Kyoei with no silver on the focus ring), great for UV:

Whereas I'm finding clones of these currently run on average $24 shipped. Plus there are the slightly nicer Tonkina(?) preset clones with similar UV performance for ~$30 shipped

http://www.ultraviol...ka-koyei-clone/

 

I know which ones I'll take...

[Alex H]

Whereas I'm finding clones of these currently run on average $24 shipped. Plus there are the slightly nicer Tonkina(?) preset clones with similar UV performance for ~$30 shipped

http://www.ultraviol...ka-koyei-clone/

 

I know which ones I'll take...

 

Except that the lenses you link to were not manufactured by Kyoei, and have limited optical and mechanical resemblance to Kyoei-made 35mm lenses. Many of them have also much poorer UV performance as has been shown by Klaus. Calling them "clones" is not correct, as I tried to point out earlier. However, who am I to tell anyone how to waste their money...

[lost cat]

Except that the lenses you link to were not manufactured by Kyoei, and have limited optical and mechanical resemblance to Kyoei-made 35mm lenses. Many of them have also much poorer UV performance as has been shown by Klaus. Calling them "clones" is not correct, as I tried to point out earlier. However, who am I to tell anyone how to waste their money...

 

???

 

I'm looking at Enrico's web site where he compares a KA Soligor to a Kyoei Type 2:

 

http://www.savazzi.n...phy/35mmuv.html

 

The performance using a filter array looks very similar and Enrico concludes as such. He also speculates the KA "as a likely abbreviation of Kyoei Acall".

 

http://www.savazzi.n.../35soligor.html

 

At the bottom of that review he also links to Klaus's blog where a Kuribyashi 35/3.5 is compared to a Soligor 35/3.5.

 

http://photographyof...28_archive.html

 

I'll admit I prefer Klaus's spectrometer data to that of the filter array; however Its not clear if this spectrum is of a KA Soligor or another lesser UV friendly Soligor model. Klaus mentions you were part of that testing, can you confirm which Soligor model was used?

 

In my own test which I had linked to earlier I found the slightly nicer Super Lentar branded preset Tonkina(?) "clone" to yield similar results to the KA Soligor. I did not claim this lens was made by Koyei but perhaps by Tonkina as you had suggested.

 

Granted the test was crude but this methodology was adequate to show a Prinzgalaxy branded "Photax type 1" to be less UV capable than the KA Soligor, a result also shown by Enrico:

 

http://www.ultraviol...ka-koyei-clone/

 

http://www.savazzi.n...ax.html#figure1

 

Calling them "clones" is not correct

 

How about "cousins" instead?

[Alex H]

Once I had the same opinion as Enrico, until I had both lenses in my hands and took both apart. Mechanically, they are totally different. Optically - we will never know for sure. And there is no real proof that they were made by the same manufacturer.

 

"KA" can as well mean KAWANON, or it may have no meaning that we can decipher. I actually had a Soligor branded lens (105mm), which was IDENTICAL optically and mechanically to Kyoei Acall, and it was labelled as "K", not "KA"!

Note also that the optical construction that Enrico shows the box of the KA Soligor with the optical scheme consisting 6 elements in 5 groups, while Kyoei is definitely 5 elements in 4 groups! That does not add any confidence, just adds more confusion. Commonly, 6 elements in 5 groups were used for 35mm F/2.8 lenses, not F/3.5.

 

The number of 35mm F/3.5 third party lenses is enormous. Most of them fall into two groups regarding their optical construction: 4 elements in 4 groups (like Noflexar, Takumar, etc.) or 5 elements in 4 groups (like Kyoei, etc.).

Even if they have similar optical construction, they may still have different coatings, use different cement or different type of glass. And we will not be able to know about it for sure.

 

Soligor re-branded and resold lenses from many different manufacturers, some of them were just re-labelled on the front ring, other lenses were "made" for Soligor (with modified optics or mechanics). I did indeeed have a Soligor branded lens that is optically and mechanically identical to Kyoei Acall, and it is not T-mount and has no "KA" label, see this post here: http://www.ultraviol...f-3535-presets/

 

There were many third party lens manufacturers in the 50th and 60th in Japan that produced lower cost lenses. Apparently, some shared optical and mechanical parts, and it is often impossible to judge who made what just by looking at mechanical or optical construction of the lens. The resellers would use their own names for lenses sourced from different makers, often the lenses of the same focal length and aperture would be sourced from different makers at different periods of time. In other cases, the same exact lens sold by different resellers would not only have different "label" but may be marked as having different focal length (17mm vs 18mm, 19mm vs 20mm, 24mm vs 25mm). I also now a number of lenses made by the same manufacturer, having same focal length and aperture, and labelled in exactly the same way, including "standard" number, but having completely different optical construction...

 

The word "cousins" is as bad definition as "clones". They are not related by descent, do they?

 

I see nothing wrong with describing exactly what the lens is being discussed in a short sentence like this "T-mount pre-set 35mm F/3.5 lens, 5E/4G optical construction, 49mm filter thread" or something similar. Serial number may be useful or may be not. Having picture as a reference is the best, and in my opinion, the only proper way to identify the lens in question.

 

 

At the end, it is the optical performance that really counts. And that includes not only the UV transmission, but sharpness, chromatic aberration, focus shift, field curvature, bokeh, etc. Mechanical construction can be as important as optical for some users.

 

Please note that the lens manufacturer name is Tokina

[Cadmium]

Clones, Cousins, and Zombies... oh my! ("Lions, tigers, and bears, oh my!")

I once had a box full of clones, only to find out that all but one of them were actually zombies, and the one was pretending very hard to be a zombie, but was really a long lost twin. ;-)

 

The 'Clone' label is confusing. There are different levels I suppose of the use of that term.

For example, the Kuribayashi lens set (excluding the 50mm) are exactly the same as the Kyoei lenses except cosmetics and labeling, made by the same company, same optics.

Other examples are lenses that don't look the same, may not have the same mechanical build even (like the focus ring is in front of the aperture ring, etc.).

Then the extreme use of the term would be any lens of the same focal length and aperture that is old and transmits UV (we think maybe).

 

An interesting example is that Petri 35mm f/3.5 breech lock bayonet mount lens that Bjorn found, which I would never have guessed transmitted UV well, because I have a collection of breech lock lenses of the 1960+ era, and none are very good at UV transmission, except those longer ones that are Lentar 'clones', all the rest of the breech lock collection I have are zombie lenses. Although I have not taken mine apart, Bjorn's 35mm Petri appears to have the exact same optics in the front and rear as the Kuri/Kyoei 35mm 'twins' have. I can't say what the optical design is in that lens, but the aperture is behind the focus ring, instead of in front, just a mechanic location choice I suppose, but this does make the lens different to me, not a twin.

So would it be a 'clone'?

 

I guess we have to define clone.

For example, are clones just re-branded lenses made by the same company? Do they have the exact same optics? Same overall design, even mechanically?

Or are they simply any lens that transmits UV about the same as some other lens we want to clone?

What are the rules of the term?

 

My personal opinion is that a clone is made by the same company and is almost exactly the same, and re-branded with a cosmetic makeover.

 

One might use the term Pachyderm, because according to Wiki "the order is no longer in use, but it is important in the history of systematics".

 

So to me the term is blurred and can even be misleading. I am not sure if it is a good term to use, because it misses the point, which is more about UV transmission, photographic quality, focal shift, etc..

[lost cat]

Not clone, not cousin...rats.

 

How about Doppelganger? :D

 

But seriously Alex, thank you for taking the time to help me and other newbies wrap our heads around this. It seems lens manufacturers had quite a free for all back in the day. Lots of lookalikes out there.

 

As to the optics of the Soligor KA Enrico does mention the box is incorrect - his take apart of the lens revealed a 5E/5G optical construction with no cemented elements. So if the Kyoei has a 5E/4G construction the Soligor KA is not a long lost Kyoei sibling after all (although Enrico did say:

 

I found that also a Prinz Galaxy 35 mm f/3.5 , a Galaxy 35 mm f/3.5 and a Soligor 35 mm f/3.5 in a different barrel than those tested above use the same optics as the Kyoei, Soligor, Optomax and Hanimex discussed above, and give the same results in UV photography.

 

Which is very odd.)

 

http://www.savazzi.net/photography/35mmuv.html

 

It may then be necessary to require all submitted reviews to confirm the optical construction of each lenses being tested. Probably a good idea anyway to ensure such reviews are done with a freshly cleaned lens.

 

Please not that the lens manufacturer name is Tokina

 

Oops, sorry. Fixed it.

 

At least I didn't spell it as Tonka.

 

One other thing I'm unclear on - the sticky has the Soligor KA with a range estimate of 340nm but Enrico's data shows a signal in the 325 nm filter and further claims this lens passes usable amounts of light down to 305-315 with a strong UV source and the right filter. How are we defining the range estimate?

[Andrea B.]

We are defining range estimates very loosely, imho. Until someone takes all these lenses and actually measures them properly, I wouldn't take any range estimate too seriously.

 

What I have in the Sticky has been provided by the person who tested the lens however they tested it. That is to say, testing standards vary wildly. For now, it is all we have. :) We take whatever we can get. And warn everyone to be sure to investigate for themselves.

 

If anyone wishes to define and pursue a standardized and strict testing protocol, that would be a very good thing. You are welcome to publish any such testing here if you like. Or we will link to it if it is published elsewhere.