Marco Aries

If you have a camera, at some point you have tried to shoot macro, maybe by holding a magnifying glass in front of the lens or maybe with some extension tubes. I know because I’ve done the same. But this time I have a proper 1:1 macro lens to show you. Let’s take a closer look. The lens is made mostly of plastic, it weighs around 420g, it is 74 to 100mm long and it has an external diameter of 72mm, with a 62mm front thread. The iris has 7 blades, the aperture is clicked and it goes from f2.8 to f32 without half steps. The focusing ring is rubberized, it turns 160 degrees and the minimum focusing distance is 21.9cm, granting a 1 to 1 reproduction. It uses a screw drive autofocus, it has a manual auto selector and a switch to limit the focus range from 30cm to infinity. It has a Nikon F mount. The lens is well balanced when focused to infinity, but it becomes front heavy when extended. Overall, it is fairly light, so it’s not a problem. What can be annoying is that the focus goes from 2m...

At a first glance you would think this is a vintage lens but technically it’s not and you can buy it right now from the Zenit store. Specifically, the original Zenitar-1K was released in 1988 but the 1N and 1C were released in 2016 with an updated optical design. The lens is made of metal, it weighs 580g, it is 59 to 70mm long and it has an external diameter of 78mm, with a 72mm front thread. The iris has 8 blades, the aperture is clicked and it goes from f1.4 to f21 with half steps. The focusing ring is textured, it turns 160 degrees and the minimum focusing distance is 85cm. It comes with either Canon Ef or a Nikon F mount. The lens is definitely chunky and well balanced, the controls turn smoothly but the focus ring is a bit stiff. Wide open it can be quite soft even in the center with visible blooming. By f2.8 it gets much sharper, with more detail and only falling off a bit in the corners. By f8 it gets very sharp all over the frame, picking up even more detail. And here’s a sampl...

  The lens is made of metal, it weighs around 420g, it is 83 to 100mm long and it has an external diameter of 64mm, with a 55mm front thread. It has a built in sunhood lined with opaque material. The iris has 8 blades, the aperture is clicked and it goes from f2.8 to f22 with half steps. Below the aperture ring there’s an auto aperture switch for compatible cameras. The focusing ring is textured, it turns 280 degrees and the minimum focusing distance is 1.4m. This copy has an M42 mount with a flange distance of 45,46mm. The lens feels very premium: solid and smooth. The aperture clicks are soft but with good resistance and I would have preferred the ring itself to be a little wider. The lens itself is front heavy so it can be a little uncomfortable on small cameras. Sharpness wide open is good with plenty of detail, only falling off a little bit in the corners. By f8 it gets a little sharper. I can’t see any distortion. Chromatic aberration is present wide open, along with some blo...

The Asahi Pentax M are probably my favorite vintage lenses, but one kept eluding me: the 40mm, today’s subject. I had never seen one in the flesh and the couple I saw online were three or four times more expensive than other M lenses, so I basically gave up. Until around a year ago when I stumbled upon two of them; one was in bad shape and overpriced while the other was cheaper, pretty clean and the seller was willing to trade with another lens I had, so we sealed the deal. The lens is made of metal, it weighs around 80g, it is 18 to 22mm long and it has an external diameter of 63mm, with a 49mm front thread. The iris has 5 blades, the aperture is clicked and it goes from f2.8 to f22 with half steps. The focusing ring is rubberized, it turns 90 degrees and the minimum focusing distance is 60cm. The Pentax K mount has a flange distance of 45,46mm. The one complaint I have about this lens is the stupidly narrow focus ring. I mean, it works, but it is pretty silly. As you would expect, it...

A couple of years ago I showed you the MTO 500mm and since then I’ve been even more curious to try a 1000mm, but let me tell you: they are two different beasts. The 500 is reasonably small, light and easy to use, while the Rubinar is big, heavy and hard to handle. The lens is made of metal, it weighs around 1kg 650g, it is 18 to 19,5cm long and it has an external diameter of 13cm, with a 11,5cm front thread. It has a fixed aperture of f10 and no iris. The focusing ring is rubberized, it turns 300 degrees and the minimum focusing distance is 4 meters. It comes with a large sun hood and it has a rotating collar with a tripod mount and soft clicks every 90 degrees. The M42 mount has a flange distance of 45,46mm. While it does lack some sharpness, it still manages to capture a good amount of finer details, plus, catadioptric lenses do not have chromatic aberration. Colors are natural with good contrast but lacking some saturation. Specular highlights have the very distinctive torus shape a...

  The lens is made of metal, it weights around 150g, it is 32 to 35mm long and it has an external diameter of 60mm, with a 49mm front thread. The iris has 6 blades, the aperture is clicked and it goes from f3.5 to f16 without half steps. The focusing ring is rubberized, it turns 80 degrees and minimum focusing distance is 30cm. The Olympus OM mount has a flange distance of 46mm. The engravings on the front tell us some more: the letter G indicates the number of elements, seven, auto for automatic diaphfragm and W for wide angle. It is small and very light, so it won’t throw off the balance even on small mirrorless bodies. The aperture ring is a bit narrow but being in the front it is still easy to operate. Sharpness wide open is very good with some fuzziness in the corners. By f8 it gets even sharper all over the frame. At all apertures is lacks some of the finer details. It has a noticeable distortion. Chromatic aberration is present wide open, but mostly hard to notice. Colors ar...