Marco Aries

Many people despise the look of catadioptric lenses, but I find it interesting and in the past I have owned a 500 and a 1000mm. I ended up selling them because they were, well, too much for me, and I was looking for something smaller and shorter and a few months ago I found this Kenlock 300mm, in the original box no less, so I had to give it a try. The lens is made of metal, it weighs 300g, it is 58 to 67mm long and it has an external diameter of 82mm, with a 77mm front thread. Mirror lenses usually have a fixed aperture, but this has a cylinder that goes up and down inside of the lens and apparently between f5 and f11. The focusing ring is rubberized, it turns 260 degrees and the minimum focusing distance is 1 meter. The front element turns when focusing. It uses the m42 mount. Get your adapter here: Global: https://amzn.to/4gi9OR7 ITA: https://amzn.to/4f5smST (As an Amazon affiliate I earn a commission from eligible purchases) Mine also has a metal sunhood, but I’m not sure it came ...

There is plenty of good, great, even amazing vintage lenses out there, but very few of them are zooms. In fact, a good chunk of them are just too big, too heavy and produce soft images, but not all of them. For example, the Sigma 35-70 that I’ve reviewed in 2020 is small, lightweight and sharp. Many of you have suggested me to check out Vivitar and Canon FD zooms, so when I had the chance to buy this guy, I didn’t turn it down. The Canon 100-300mm is made out of metal, it weights around 800g, it is 21cm long when focused to infinity and 22.3cm when fully extended, with a 58mm front thread. The iris has 8 blades, the aperture is clicked and it goes from f5.6 to f32 with half steps. When focusing, both the external barrel and the front element turn 210 degrees and minimum focusing distance is 2 meters. Flange distance for canon FD lenses is 42mm, so they can be easily adapted to mirrorless cameras.  (affiliate link) Sharpness wide open is good across the frame and that shou...

  Canon FD lenses have gained a lot of popularity in the last few years, amongst professionals and enthusiasts alike. Yet, there are some lenses from this line that everyone seems to forget about and end up being left behind, like today’s subject: the Canon FD 300mm f5.6. I believe I made it quite clear in past reviews of Canon FD lenses that I like them and by now you all know that I prefer longer focal lengths, so when I saw this lens in good conditions and at a fair price, I had to buy it. LET’S TAKE A CLOSER LOOK. The Canon 300mm is made out of hard plastic and metal, it weights around 580g, it is 20cm long with a 58mm front thread. Focusing happens internally, so it doesn’t get any longer, except when you extend the metal sunhood, bringing it to 26cm. The iris has 8 blades, the aperture is clicked and it goes from f5.6 to f32 The focusing ring is textured, wide, smooth and it turns 320 degrees. minimum focusing distance is a little less than 3 meters. Flange dist...

 Many vintage lenses are known to be small, compact and fairly lightweight, but this one is not. More than 19 centimeters long with the sun hood collapsed and 700 grams of weight it's kind of a beast.  I bought this lens along with the Konica Autoreflex TC and the Konica Hexanon 40mm f1.8, and my first question was: “how the heck did they do this? How the heck did they use such long, heavy lens on an analog film camera?”  I mean, even with the in-body stabilization of my Sony a6500 I had a really hard time using this lens, getting stable footage and avoiding shaky pictures, especially at 300 millimeters, partially obviously because of the focal length, but also because this lens is fricking heavy and makes the system really front heavy. Plus the adapter can't really hold that much weight so it flexes a little bit. Yeah, that was kind of weird, I seriously feared for my camera while using this lens, so much so that I always hold the system by the lens and not by the ca...