Tair 3S 300mm f4.5 vintage lens review and test

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Although I am notoriously not much of a fan of soviet lenses, it is undeniable that they can be quite quirky.

The tair 3s, for example, was made specifically for the fotosniper, a kit that resembles, as the name suggests, a rifle.

I will go into more detail about the fotosniper in a dedicated video, So let's take a closer look at the lens.


The lens is made of metal, it weighs a little more than 1 and a half kilos, it is 25 to 29cm long and it has an external diameter of 88mm, with a 72mm front thread and it comes with a rubber sun hood

The iris has 16 blades, the aperture is clicked and it goes from f4.5 to f22 without half steps.

It uses a preset system that might not be super intuitive, especially when adapting to digital.

First you select the aperture, like f8, then you turn the red knob in the direction of the arrow to open up the blades so you can compose and focus more easily and when you pull the trigger on the support, it presses this lever and the aperture closes.

It doesn’t have a focusing ring, but rather a knob that turns 270 degrees and the minimum focusing distance is 3m.

It uses the m42 mount.


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On the bottom there are threads to mount it to the stock, but none of them are quarter inch like we are used to. Although, the middle one does fit 3/8

Surprisingly, I was able to handheld this lens fairly alright by using the focusing knob as a handle.


Sharpness wide open is actually very good, with some softness and light vignetting in the corners

Stopping down to f8 it gets even sharper all over the frame

Some Chromatic aberration is visible wide open, but it is rarely distracting.

Colors are fairly true to life, with good contrast and only lacking some saturation.

Specular highlights can have some hard edges and backgrounds are very smooth with pleasant falloff.

I haven’t had any issues with flares and loss of contrast in normal use.


This lens reminds me a lot of the Jupiter 21: big, heavy, unwieldy but with good image quality.

In fact, better image quality than I was expecting.

If you can find a collar that fits and makes it easier to mount it on a tripod and don’t mind the slightly odd controls, the tair could actually be an interesting lens to own.

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