Marco Aries

  If you've been around my channel or this blog for a while you'll probably know that I've been building a kit of Konica Hexanon lenses, more by chance than by choice, let's be honest. Yet I now find myself owning the well-known 40mm f1.8 “pancake”, the 135mm f2.5 “big boi” and the 50mm f1.7, along with two third-party lenses, the Tokina 135mm f2.8 and the Sigma 35-70mm. Konica Hexanon AR 50mm f1.7  I bought this lens at the end of last summer from a kind old man, a retired semi-professional photographer, so it was well kept and maintained, clean lenses and no mechanical issues.  The body of the lens is made of metal and weights 210 grams; it is 40mm long when focused to infinity and 47mm when fully extended. The focusing ring is rubberized with a nice grippy texture and it turns 180 degrees. Minimum focusing distance is average at 55cm, the iris has six blades, the aperture is clicked and goes from f1.7 to f16. Past that it goes into auto exposure mode and you have t...

  Since my review of the 40mm f1.8 everyone has been telling me to check out the 135mm, but as I soon found out, there are multiple versions of it and the general consent seems to be that the f3.5 version is the one to get, sharper, lighter, more compact and so on. Obviously, the only one I could find was the f2.5, but I got it anyway. Since I bought it, I've found myself coming back to it time and time again, it's a lens that keeps giving, I really enjoy shooting it and, as you probably all know by now, I prefer longer lenses to short and wide ones, and this one really reminds me of my Tokina 135mm f2.8, they are really similar although this is a bit bigger, but we will discuss more about that in a dedicated video, if you want to.  Anyway, this “big boi”, as I like to call it, has a metal body and weighs around 650 grams. It is 93mm long when focused to infinity, 118mm when extended and when you pop out the built-in sun hood it gets to 134mm; the front thread has a 62mm dia...

  There’s a bit of a story behind acquiring this lens. In the summer of 2019 I went to a different flea market, one I had never been before and on a table I saw a camera and a couple lenses. I quickly inspected them and while they seemed in great conditions, but I barely knew the Konica name and had no knowledge on how good, or bad, it could be, so I left it there. Considering that I usually buy almost anything, it was pretty uncharacteristic of me. By the time I got home I was still thinking about that lens, so I looked it up on the internet and realized that at least the 40mm was supposed to be a good lens, and the price was fair too. “Well”, I said to myself, “you lose one, you get one, I’ll find something else next time”. A month later I went back to that flea market and, lo and behold, there it was, still waiting for me, so I bought it, along with some paperwork, a small catalog, the Kenlock 100-300mm, an Autoreflex TC camera, which I will eventually try, and a focal multiplie...