My friend Jimmy loaned me a Seimar-Donnex 200mm f3.5 telephoto lens in Konica AR mount last Saturday. It’s a beautiful build and in wonderful condition.
I decided to put it on my Sony NEX-5N and give it a whirl. Late Monday morning, the Girl started asking for some attention. One of her toys was sitting in the floor outside my workroom. So I grabbed the NEX and shot the frame. I immediately noticed some magenta fringing in the high-contrast area of the image. That’s not unusual for telephoto lenses, particularly if the optical formula doesn’t specifically correct that aberration.
A bit later we went for a short walk to check the mail. The neighbor’s flag is a favorite subject. I like to shoot it through the front-yard vegetation to get a bit of framing.
The light was pretty flat so there wasn’t a lot of contrast. The lens is plenty sharp, even wide open. I was impressed.
My final image for the day was a small flag one of my other neighbors has in his front yard. There was a little more contrast for this shot. I noticed just a hint of magenta fringing in the edges of the flag. It’s not a lot and could easily be corrected in post-processing. However, the lens has really nice bokeh when wide open. The background is smooth with just enough texture to provide some interest.
For me, this lens is not a keeper. It’s an interesting lens alright, but I have several in this focal length that provide equally interesting image quality. So I think I’ll let this one go. The build quality is excellent and the bokeh is quite nice. If I didn’t have some better lenses, this one would be worth the investment.
Besides that, I love odd lenses. It’s from a maker I’d never heard of.