Vivitar 24mm f/2 "M"

[bigdawg]

Looks like a nice acquisition TH.

Dawg

[NonEntity1]

Looks good Th. I have the Viv 28mm f/2 and it seems to be a similarly good performer. Between the two, though, I am sure the extra 4mm on the wide end pays off.

Tim

[thkn777]

NonEntity1 wrote:

Looks good Th. I have the Viv 28mm f/2 and it seems to be a similarly good performer. Between the two, though, I am sure the extra 4mm on the wide end pays off.

Tim

Yeah,
since I have a Pentax-A 28/2.8 I really tried to get something wider, so at the moment I got a small, yet fine collection of primes:

- Vivitar "M" 24/2
- Pentax A 28/2.8
- Pentax M 40/2.8
- Pentax A 50/1.7
- Pentax M 85/2
- Pentax K 135/2.5
- Pentax M 200/4

That's something for every occasion I'd say. I am still toying with the idea to replace the 200/4 with something faster and get a 300mm prime, but I've got time to wait for a good chance here. Also a real wide lens is missing, I've got 18mm from the kit lens at max here.

@Dawg,
aye - I took some more shots today and so far these look good to me. I found it a tad harder to focus correctly with wide lenses, maybe that has something to do with the AF system indicating focus in a f/4 range (iirc that is... someone posted that somewhere, I am pretty sure) or with my eyes... who knows.

I am really toying with the idea to order a focussing screen (that microprism thingie older cameras had, you know what I mean).

Regards,
Th.

[rparmar]

I confirm your observations after significant testing of various Vivitar MF lenses, most of them 28mm. I have the Vivi 28 f/2 made by Komine which I tested on [color="#0000a0"]http://noisetheatre.blogspot.com/2008/09/on-test-vivitar-28mm-120-close-focus.html]my blog

I also have the Viv 24mm f/2 made by Komine in the KA mount. The extra stop of light is useful when focusing but for sharp shots I start at f/2.8, as you have determined. I won't tell you what I got mine for, since it was the deal of the century. :-)

[thkn777]

Yeah,
I took quite a lot of photos with that lense in the past days, here's another 1:1 crop. My cat laying on the sofa. Taken at f/4 with a selfmade bouncer, close distance shot. I just extracted the JPEG from the RAW, cropped the 900x1200 area, applied some adaptive blur in the L-channel to help bringing down image size for posting (still had to go down to 80% JPEG quality), otherwise no postprocessing. Taken with my DL2.

I am happy with my purchase.

[robar]

i had one of these under the kiron name.. it was so soft at f2 that i sold it.. i think it's the only kiron that i've disliked

roy

[thkn777]

robar wrote:

i had one of these under the kiron name.. it was so soft at f2 that i sold it.. i think it's the only kiron that i've disliked

roy

Yes, at f/2 it is really VERY soft, but after reading some articles I was expecting this. At f/2.8 performance is very good and to be honest I like the idea of stopping down twice to get f/2.8 better than using f/2.8 wide open (as I do on my Pentax-A 28/2.8). The difference is notable!

[rparmar]

I agree completely. This lens is decisively better than the Pentax equivalent at f/2.8. As I have no doubt said before, I treat it like an excellent f/2.8 that just happens to let in more light for extreme cases. I cannot imagine ever selling it. (Except maybe I have two.)

[robar]

i maybe had a bad copy as my M28/2.8 was sharper across the range. i will recommend the tamron 28/2.5.. just got one and it's a nice performer even wide open..

roy