The Sub £50 Lens Guide

A close focus Vivitar f/2 in K mount will not be under fifty unless you get very, very lucky.

Pentax SMC M 50mm f1.7 and 200mm f4. I just wish all lenses came with a similar priceerformance ratio. They are also immensely satisfying to use as they force you to think much harder about differential focus, depth-of-field and exposure values before shooting and their is huge 'buzz' that comes from getting it right without the help of camera's microprocessors.

Jon

The good: Pentax-M 75-150mm f4 zoom - great at around £25; Rikenon 50mm f1.7 - very good and you can often get them for less than a tenner on Ebay; Pentax 18-55mm MK2 kit lens is good too; Sigma 24mm f2.8 Super-Wide II - razor sharp (but you'll be lucky to get one for less than £50).

The bad: Takumar 80-200mm f4.5 zoom - no good at any price, XR Rikenon 300mm f4.5 APO - sharp but obvious blue fringing wider than f11.


Andrew

The good:-

SMC-K 55mm F1.8. Beautifully built, smooth and creamy bokeh, sharp, Tactile delight - £23
Takumar 135mm F2.5. Some don't like this lens, but I do. Fast, very light, well built, can produce CA, but not seen much of it in use. Great with the DS for discreetness. £40

The Bad(ish)
Osawa 200mm F4. Metal build, but odd third party lens, rarely used, but results were okay. Came with leather case - £25
Zenit 50mm F2.8 Russian fifty that came with the Zenit body. However it was given to free so can't complain. Have used it with tubes and gave okay results.

The Bad - none, been very lucky.

i have over 150 lenses to work through ,to decide on say a dozen keepers.,with the way lens prices have been rising taken the gamble i wont loose any money,so having read this thread i thought i would test two of the lenses mentioned,the smc m 50mm f 1.7 and the helios 44,44-2,and 44m.all three helios,s much to my amazment where pin sharp on the litrature i was focusing on from approx three feet,the smc's however (i have three of them)were lacking in sharpness..i used mirror lockup and mini tripod,iso 100,liveview manual focusing,then i tried my 18-55 zoom set to 55mm ,auto focus, then manually and had a real shock that even manually there was no comparrison,the zoom was rubbish.what can i try to get these f 1.7's to match these three old russian lenses(at first thought wow i,m blessed with a gem,then tried other two to find they are consistantly sharp. trying to work out how to post some pic's now.also i realise there are other factors like colour,bokoh,etc ,etc.i am a complete novice ,but from these first tests i think i will be keeping a helios.

I'd like a shot from each lens please?

Loads of post and not a single image, yet.

Helios lenses do vary and you should keep any good ones. There's a site somewhere that compares one to the Contax CZ 50mm and the Helios looks better. The Pentax 50mm should be sharper than the Helios at around f/8. A proper resolution test would show the Helios continuing to improve at f/11 and f/16 and not reaching any form of peak around f/8 as most modern computer designs do. The strong point of the Helios lenses is the bokeh.

Look out for the Helios 135mm's excellent lenses, but hard to believe that they were still making pre-sets at the time of the Moscow Olympics in 1980 I've got one with the Olympic logo engraved on it.

Algi

trying to work out how to post them ,cropped them down small.

This is a good site for samples of lenses with nice bokeh

Algi

Can't see one on a pentax

helios 44 if you save and zoom in on these theres so much detail.




helios 44-2


helios 44m

now the smc 50mm f1.7

will try test again at recomended optimum settings ,so please feel free to give your ideas on what that will be,and i,ll give it a go .got loads of lenses that should knock spots of the helios.. Super tak,s ,carl ziess etc,but think this was worth a mention,coz this might be a lens many have not tried due to its rediculously low price.

Sorry the 135mm's are called Jupiters 11A and 37A (f/3.5 and f/4). There were some mass produced re-badged f/2.8's called Helios, but I've never heard anyone rave over them.

Algi

Nigelxk, tests on lettering don't really stretch the lens and results vary depending on colour balance, lens coatings, angle etc.

I find it better to use a bank note. The UK £10 on the Charles Darwin side is ideal.

I use available light (daylight) and put 2 pieces of Blu-Tak on the wall 500mm apart (overall) I put the note in the centre and move the camera back until the Blu-Tak blobs are just within the frame. The camera should be on a tripod square and level with the centre of the note. You can put another note in the corner as well.

Take a minimum of 4 shots at each aperture re-focus for each one and chose the best. Farstone free viewer lets you compare 4 at once. You can also do MF and AF 4 shots each to see which is the best.

At f/8 only 2 shots should do because of DOF.

This is one I did sometime ago between the 2 Pentax AF 50mm's wide open. 100% Crops.




The rigging on the ship is about the best indicator of sharpness also (not seen here) Darwins portrait with the engraving lines.