So, you want to buy a used lens…part two

In his continuing piece on the current state of the pre-owned lens market, Phil Rhodes sifts through the complex legacy of decades of lenses.

Follow the link to read part one of this piece.

If this [ie everything talked about in part one] is still too expensive, the really low cost option is a range that’s been discussed in hushed tones for years. Partly, that’s because the Nikon Series E are the first set of lenses Nikon ever made that wasn’t fashioned from solid metal and is sometimes seen as a bit low-rent as a result. Mainly, however, it’s because most of the Series Es are much better than they have any right to be while still maintaining sub-£100 pricing per lens, so don’t tell anyone. There’s nothing wider than the 28 and a gap between 50 and 100, although they’re all at least an f/2.8.

All of the Nikon Series E lenses have the focus ring as the widest part of their construction from at least one end of the lens, making unbroken focus gears a possibility. The F mount suffers some of the same criticisms of EF in cinema use, but otherwise the build is generally better than many modern stills lenses, much as it was criticised for being plasticky at the time. Nikon’s entire purpose with the series E was to create something affordable, and they remain affordable now.

Avoid early versions, which lack the chrome grip ring and have a single-row grip pattern on the focus ring. Those may not be as good (though they may be even less expensive), and the trombone zooms are questionable for moving-image work. Otherwise, the whole set can be put together for barely more than £100 a lens including adaptors to EF.

Pentax, Meyer-Optik Görlitz, & more

Sadly, the Pentax SMC-M series have mostly pushed into the three-digit realm, although even at £250 the 85mm f/2 is at least a comparatively inexpensive option (though see Nikon). The 135mm is a disappointing f/3.5, though the rest of the range is quite well-specified, with the extremely common 50mm f/1.7 going for under £50 in most places. The rest of the range includes a 28/2.8, 35/2.8, 50/1.4 and 100/2.8, as well as a faster 50/1.4 and a 40/2.8 pancake, and there is even a 20mm, though £200 for f/4 seems ambitious.

Traditionally, we might also have looked at the Meyer-Optik Görlitz lenses, which sometimes arise branded as Pentacon Auto with various multi-coating options. Searches on the brand names turn up a miasma of options which often represent the same glass in a different shell, but promising lenses include the 29/.28, the cheaper 30/3.5, 50/1.8, 100/2.8 and 135/2.8. Watch out for the cheapest options as they’re often in Exakta mount, which requires a quality-sapping optical adaptor for compatibility with deeper mounts such as EF. The problem is that Meyer-Optik branded versions often exceed £100, which feels steep for lenses that often wobble hesitantly on the fence between character and mush.

That tempting 29mm, for instance, goes for as little as £29 with its Pentacon hat on, but at least one version crosses over directly from the softness of low f-numbers to the softness of diffraction limitation without ever really finding a zone of sharpness inbetween. Even the 50 leans towards an almost Helios-esque distortion of soft backgrounds. Many of them are more organic than a big, steaming pile of… compost, and while modern editions are more consistent, if you’re looking to take the edge off, old Meyer-Optik lenses will take the edge off, melt the edge down, and recast the edge into a small model of Mickey Mouse, who is the least edgy character in fiction.

Choices broaden if we’re willing to forego an 85mm, as many stills ranges do. Still, the real news is what isn’t cheap. The original, mark-one Asahi Takumars are enormously variable in price, with the 135mm frequently found at yard sales for next to nothing; at the same time, the hugely desirable 83/1.9 can easily push into four figures for the silver M37 version. The later SMC Takumars are a little more affordable, other, inevitably, than the 85. They have seductive amber coatings which beckon ambitious comparisons the glass itself probably can’t sustain, but they have a less smeary gentleness than the Meyer-Optik.

Among all these things are certainly options that don’t work. Chinon was a storied manufacturer of Super-8 cameras, and released lenses under its name in Pentax K and M42 mounts, which sounds promising. Things initially look good, with 28/2.8, 35/2.8 and 50/1.4mm each with attractive green and yellow nameplates, but then nothing between that and the 135/2.8. There is theoretically an earlier design of M42 Chinon- or Chinonflex-branded Tomioka lens out there somewhere in 100mm, but they appear to be made out of the finest, highly-refined unobtainium; if anybody’s ever physically seen one, comment for bragging rights. 

'70s Japanese optics

In this part of the market, nameplates may not tell us much anyway. Chinon’s lens range is an example of a phenomenon of 1970s Japanese optics, when OEMs including (but not nearly limited to) Tomioka, Cosina, Tokina, Setagaya and Kino supplied both components and finished lenses to be sold internationally under storied names such as Vivitar, Bell & Howell and Mamiya, or less-storied names like Soligor, Tamron and Komine. There’s a huge, foot-long 90-190mm f/5.8 zoom out there which has been sold as Yashinon, Yashica, Sears, Ricoh and Soligor. 

On the upside, that might not be a very expensive pastime. A more expensive hobby involves Mamiya medium format lenses. Generally selling for hundreds apiece, they absolutely cross over with the least-expensive cinema glass, and focal lengths are generally rather long for super-35mm cameras, with nothing below 35mm. With a focal reducer from Kipon, on the other hand, they become fast, wide and enormously capable, even if the reducer itself is a four-figure device. It’s far from a cheap option, but they’re practically an investment, and can be rehoused, building-in the speed booster, to create very desirable cinema lenses.

Word count limits being what they are, there will always be more to talk about with regard to old lenses. The Japanese manufacturers of the 70s have created a tantalisingly complex situation in which inexpensive and well-matched sets may yet lie undiscovered, although making those discoveries might require swimming an ocean of dubiously-wonderful, mid-70s Japanese glass.