An interesting recent GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) find is the Kiron 28mm f/2.8 MC, a character-rich manual-focus wide-angle legacy prime manufactured by Kino Precision in the 1980s.
The lens is a robustly built 7-element, 7-group design with 6 aperture blades. It has a minimum focusing distance of 0.30 meters, measures 64mm × 57mm, accepts 55mm filters, and weighs around 284 grams.
For the vintage enthusiast, the lens has the potential of doing well as a sharp and bright low-cost alternative to the standard normals as normally seen on digital mirrorless with 2x or APS-C crop sensors.
The lens, available with various mounts including M42, Pentax K, Minolta MD, Canon FD, Nikon F, Olympus OM, and Yashica C/Y, is also reportedly sold as the Vivitar MC Wide Angle 28mm F2.8.
Where mentioned, however, references to the lens could very well be to its other sibling, the Kiron 28mm f/2, rather than to the f/2.8 itself, which is rather obscure and is missing its due attention.
Despite its age (as it was manufactured in the 1980s) and, in part, a testament to its build quality, the all-metal and glass lens I acquired is still in pristine condition, spick and span, with a clean and tidy barrel full of sheen. It looks well cared for and functions flawlessly.
The well-damped focus ring is incredibly smooth, just like the clicked aperture ring, while the elements are visually clean and clear, with only minimal dust visible under LED light.
On mirrorless cameras with 2x crop sensors, like the Olympus PEN E-P5 the lens was tested on, the lens in equivalent to a 56mm lens on a 35mm full frame camera, a focal length considered to be on the border between standard and short telephoto, ideal for general photography like street scenes, portraits, and everyday use for sharp and flattering images with natural perspective as the eye sees.
On APS-C digital SLR cameras with 1.5x crop sensors, the lens is equivalent to a 40mm lens on a 35mm full frame camera, the 'sweet spot' focal length for photography, a very versatile focal length that mimics human vision with minimal distortion, making it ideal for capturing realistic scenes without feeling too wide or too tight. The focal length is excellent for travel, street, and documentary photography, as well as for close-up details, architecture, and casual portraits.
Images, as processed, are uniquely warm and vintage, sharp when stopped down, and on the crop-sensor, do not show much of vignetting, flaring, or chromatic aberration. While the lens may not be razor-sharp wide-open, the nuances of artistic qualities that vintage lenses have over modern sharpness and clarity are the advantage that vintage enthusiasts are looking for over modern glass.
The Olympus PEN E-P5, a top-of-the-line Micro Four Thirds mirrorless camera introduced by Olympus in 2013, is fitted with an advanced 16MP Live MOS sensor, TruePic VI Image Processor, a top shutter speed of 1/8000 second, an ISO Range from 100–25600 (native 200–25600, extended 100), and a tilting 3.0-inch 1.04 million-dot touchscreen.
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