Legacy Lens Review, Hanimex 135mm 1:2.8 MC Macro

A quick look at the Hanimex 135mm 1:2.8 MC Macro, an underrated and undervalued medium telephoto lens with a twin focus ring.

I have had this twin-focus ring medium telephoto lens, a Hanimex 135mm 1:2.8 MC Macro for quite some time now, but never really used it until recently, when I realized that it has a faulty aperture ring. The ring was not functioning and the lens stayed open all the time during the shoot. Despite its shortcomings, I did manage, however, to grab a few close focus / macro shots on a quick shoot in the garden.

The lens came courtesy of a job lot of a pair of camera kits. While one kit works perfectly, the body to which the Hanimex was attached was a defunct Fuji AX-5 which I was not able to resurrect either. Overall though, the package was still a good buy as the lens, though needing the aperture ring repair part, was still in a very excellent hardly used condition.

The lens (also seen as Makinon, Sears, ?) is all metal and glass, 5 elements in 4 groups, solidly built, and with the sample I had, both focus rings work perfectly, just a neigh short of being buttery smooth. The lens has an in-built 'macro zone' ring at the front, which begins to protrude out as the main external distance focus ring is brought nearer to its closest focusing distance.

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In macro mode, the lens can be focussed to a magnification of 1:4. Forget that you were in macro mode before returning to looking at further objects, the lens will not let you get infinity focus. An off-the-mill Fuji-AX to Micro 4/3 lens adapter completes the set-up for me.

As observed, the lens seems to be generally underrated and undervalued even though it enjoys a Sharpness rating of 9.5, Aberrations 9.0, Bokeh 10.0, Handling 10.0, and Value 10.0 on PentaxForums. Reviews there were also high on the accolades.

Early Images

These early images were shot with the lens at its closest or near closest distance, hand-held, with a couple in macro mode.

Reviews also indicate that there is more than one iteration of the lens, the one I have comes with a green line on the front edge trim, 55mm filter thread, and a little green '0' marking on the aperture ring scale, which might be equivalent to an 'AE' mark on auto-exposure linked lenses.

Time for me to get the lens to the repair technician.

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