Marco Aries

We made it to the last of the three Yashica lenses I bought last winter: the 50mm f1.7 ML. If you want to check out the reviews for the 28mm  and the 135mm you can find them here on the blog and on my channel . I gotta say: it is no that easy to review 50mm lenses, because there are so many of them and most are just as good as the next one, with only a few really standing out and the Yashica is, well, one in the bunch. The body is made of metal and it weighs 220 grams, it is 40mm long when focused to infinity and 48mm when extended, with a 52mm front thread. The iris has 6 blades, the aperture is clicked and it goes from f1.7 to f16. The focusing ring turns 180 degrees and minimum focusing distance is 50 centimeters. Contax Yashica flange distance is 45,5mm and adapters are easy to find In terms of size, weight and build, the 50mm is basically identical to the 28mm 2.8 that I have already shown you, minus some aesthetic differences and the different coating, being single on the...

  Last winter I bought three Yashica lenses and this 28mm is one of them, along the 135 and the 50mm; it’ the most “humble” of the trio, being part of the basic, single coated DSB line. Yet, it doesn’t fall behind it’s sisters, in fact I would say it is better than the 135mm.  The body is made of metal and it weighs 220 grams, it is 40mm long when focused to infinity and 44mm when fully extended, with a 52 mm front thread. The iris has 6 blades, the aperture is clicked and it goes from f2.8 to f16. The focusing ring is textured, it turns 180 degrees and minimum focusing distance is 30 centimeters. Contax Yashica mount flange distance is 45,5mm and adapters are easy to find.  Sharpness is good wide open and it gets even better by stopping down a bit. Same goes for edge falloff. Background blur is not the softest, but it is not distracting either.  Chromatic aberration did show up in some really high contrast areas, but I only noticed it because I was activel...

  Last winter I bought three Yashica lenses and a camera body fo quite cheap, because they were not in the best conditions, especially the 135mm.  The optical elements were dirty, the aperture had been poorly de-clicked and, worst of all, the focusing helicoid was completely off and needed to be recalibrated and lubricated, so I gave it to a lab to be fixed and cleaned and now it works perfectly.  Yashica is one of those well know names in the industry, with a history dating back to the late '40s and in 1975 they introduced the Contax Yashica bayonet mount in collaboration with Carl Zeiss. They had three ranges of lenses: the basic one was the DSB, which had single coatings, above that was the ML, with multi coatings, and the top of the line was the Zeiss AE series.  Now, back to this lens.  The body is made of metal and weights 410 grams; it is 76mm long when focused to infinity and 90mm when fully extended, with a 52mm front thread and, my favorite featur...