A quick stroll with a bagfull of lenses

Picking our moments with the English weather, myself and fellow photographer Mark Lovell (http://mlovell-imaging.co.uk/) headed out to stretch along the river severn that neither of us were familiar with. I took along only manual focus lenses in M42 mount and used them on my Canon 40D with and M42>EOS adapter. The lenses were 24mm Ensinor, 35-85mm Vivitar Series 1, 90mm Tamron and finally my Zeiss 135mm. The Tamron wasn't used but the other 3 were and the best of each lens is below. Click the images for bigger sizes

First out of the bag was the Vivitar 35-85mm. A vario focal lens from around 1980. Its constant F2.8 aperture means it weighs a fair bit. It has good image quality at all focal lengths and all apertures. Bokeh is great from 50mm-85mm, but the bokeh at 35mm is not to eveyone's taste.

Vivitar Series 1 at 35mm @F11




Some young sheep seemed to be posing for the camera, so I pulled out the longer 135mm Zeiss. This lens is the sharpest prime I have. Image-wise I cannot fault this lens, it just does everything I want it to do. My only gripe is that the focus is stiffer than I like.

Zeiss 135mm @5.6


Last but by no means least is the Ensinor 24mm F2.8 Macro. I know little about this lens and discovered it by accident. If you have any info on it please email me as many internet searches have led nowhere. I had originally bought a Tokina 24mm lens but it really did nothing for me. I spotted this Ensinor and decided to give it a try and was suitably impressed. It's main use will be on my Pentax Spotmatic SPii.

Ensinor 24mm @F11 with circular polariser