Olympus OM Zuiko
35-70mm f/4 £40
This small zoom lens is not much larger than the kit lens you would find today accompanying a DSLR, and was originally released by Olympus in 1973 to cover the 35mm, 50mm and 70mm standard focal lengths in one convenient lens.
As a relatively short zoom, both in terms of focal length magnification and physical size, the 35-70mm is the perfect accompaniment for an Olympus OM camera. The lens is reasonably sharp, with a largely solid metal construction, and if the zoom range is kept to a fairly conservative focal length, image quality doesn’t suffer too much.
This lens works well on an APS-C compact system camera as a portrait zoom lens, offering the equivalent field of view of a 52-105mm. When fitted to a micro four thirds camera using an Olympus-OM-to-micro-four-thirds adapter, this lens becomes a nice portrait zoom with a 70mm-140mm equivalent field of view.
Helios 44M-4 58mm f/2 £10
The Helios 44M-4 58mm f/2 is an M42-thread Russian lens and an all-time classic. Most photographers will have owned or at least used one of these lenses at some point.
First produced in 1955, the lens was in production until 1978 and underwent numerous cosmetic changes when made at different factories. It was the standard lens that came with Zenit 35mm SLRs and is readily available. I own a couple of them, one of which was bought a couple of years ago from the Disabled Photographers’ Society stand at the Focus on Imaging show. I paid the princely sum of £5 for the lens – and the Zenit SLR to which it was attached.
Like the Industar lenses, the Helios 58mm is an ideal portrait lens on cameras with an APS-C-format sensor, and adapter rings to use it on most DSLR and compact system cameras can be found for £5-£20.
Vivitar 70-210mm f/4.5-5.6
Macro Zoom £50
The Vivitar 70-210mm f/4-5.6 macro zoom lens can be found in a number of lens mounts, including Minolta MD, Nikon F, Olympus OM and Pentax K. Different versions of this lens are available, with the f/3.5 and f/4.5 maximum apertures thought to produce the best image quality.
The f/4.5-5.6 version of the lens seen here was made for Vivitar by Cosina. The 70-210mm macro zoom lenses were one of the first macro zoom lenses that produced good images. This f/3.5-5.6 version focuses as close as 50cm, making it a good choice for close-up shots of flowers and still-life subjects, although it really needs an additional dioptre lens to make it a true 1:1 macro.
Like many older zooms, this lens uses a push-pull mechanism to zoom in and out. This can tend to blow air and dust into the camera’s mirror box and eventually onto a digital camera’s sensor. This wasn’t a concern when shooting on film, but it should be a consideration now. That said, if you are after a good flexible macro lens, the Vivitar 70-210mm is a good option, especially with the crop factor of an APS-C or four thirds lens giving the effect that you are even closer to the subject.
Sunagor Series 1 135mm f/2.8 £40
This lens can be found branded as Sunagor, Cosinon, Titar and probably a few other third-party names. Curiously, it has two aperture rings – one of which clicks each aperture into position, while the other one smoothly rotates between the maximum aperture and the set aperture. With no automatic connection between the lens and the camera, the second ring is simply to quickly open and close between the set aperture and fully open to make it easier to manual focus.
With a minimum focus distance of 2.2m, this model isn’t known for being the sharpest lens you will ever come across. However, it does have nice out-of-focus areas and a good level of contrast.
Pentax SMC 135mm f/3.5 £40
The Pentax SMC 135mm f/3.5 is an interesting short telephoto, with a very large aperture given the diminutive size of the lens. It also has a built-in lens hood.
Popular among Pentax film and digital camera users, the lens uses the Pentax K mount, so it can still be fitted to Pentax DSLRs where it becomes a 202mm f/3.5 equivalent. This focal length lends itself to a number of subjects, including travel, landscape and documentary photography. The images produced are very sharp, although the seven-bladed aperture doesn’t produce nice bokeh, so if you want a nice bokeh effect shoot fully open at f/3.5. However, be aware that at this aperture the lens isn’t at its sharpest.
Nikon E Series
50mm f/1.8 £50
Produced as a budget version of Nikkor’s standard 50mm f/1.8, the E Series lenses were designed to accompany the smaller Nikon EM and FG SLR cameras. Interestingly, these lenses were named Nikon, not the standard Nikkor lenses.
These lenses are made largely of plastic, although they do have a metal inner barrel and therefore a metal filter thread. The lens mount is also made of metal.
Optically, the 50mm f/1.8 E Series lens is very sharp, and almost matches its more recent AF counterparts for resolution detail, although it isn’t quite as sharp when at f/1.8. However, the best part of the lens is its slim design. When mounted on a DSLR, the 50mm f/1.8 E Series is slim enough to be considered a pancake lens, and even with the necessary adapter for a compact system camera it is still a very small and light combination to use as an f/1.8 portrait lens.
