Old Yashinon-lenses are not often mentioned in discussions about which M42 SLR-lenses to get. Well, not as often as Takumars and Carl Zeiss anyway. I think this might be bacause they are underrated, or maybe just not as common. Many might associate them with the Contax/Yashica-mount of later Yashica lenses. But there are some great stuff for your M42 camera or adapter if you’ll take a look…

The purchase
I bought a Yashica J-7 here in Sweden with this lens on it. It is the camera I reviewed on YashicaForum and entered in EpicEdits $50-dollar camera challenge. Both the camera and lens are in great shape, no marks and great lenses. It has yellowed a bit but I haven’t noticed any impact on my images.

Yashinon-DX 50mm f1.7 m42

The lens
It’s quit an odd construction, with inner tube alu-metal and focusrings in black plastic. The aperturering is very thin, but has big notches so you can easily turn it any way. It has a manual/auto-switch, that works on old Yashica M42-cameras. The switch is under the lens and hard to use while looking through the lens - so it’s not usable as a shortcut to stopping down the aperture as you can do on some other lenses with such a switch.

Side of Yashinon-lens

This normal lens it’s avarage sized, maybe large, for a 50mm. It takes 52mm filters, which is good because it’s the same filtersize as my Yashica MLs, Helios and Canon EF.

Mount of Yashinon-DX 50mm/1.7

The lens has thorium in it, the radioactive substance that makes many old lenses turn yellow. If you get a yellowed one you can put it in the sun for a few weeks and the tint will go away. The radioactivity is not much to worry about, remember this are lenses constructed to be close to negative film in analogue cameras.

Glass of this Yashinon normal lens

Results
I should use this lens more then I do, because every time I get some great shots! Good soft bokeh, sharp where I want it to be, saturated colours. I feel it suitable for nordic blue dark november for some reason.

Images
Mounted on Canon EOS 350D:

Bumblebee with m42-lens Yashinon-DX 50/1.7

Yashinon Spider

Bumblebee

Leaf with bokeh

Swedish blue november woods

Mounted on Yashica J-7 with Tri-X 400:

Stockholm old town on Tri-X

Old town chair on Tri-X

Pros
+ Lovely bokeh and colours
+ Sharp
+ Big notches on aperturering, so you get a grip eventhough it’s thin and close to camera
+ Fast
+ Good buildquality
(+ On some Yashica SLRs the auto-function works)

Cons
- The yellowing by thorium
- Single coating (although I don’t really think that’s a big con)
- No easy “aperture-open-button”
- Actually, I can’t think of that many cons - it’s a great lens.

Reading
A Photo.net thread on Yashinon-lenses
My review of the Yashica J-7 with this lens
Full roll of Tri-X film with J-7 and this lens

Introduction
As you might now I’m a fan of Yashica cameras and lenses (the reason I started YashicaForum.com offcourse). It all started out with a couple of old rangefinders and reading about the greatness of ML-series of lenses on forum.mflenses.com … at the time I think it was the ML 24mm that was being discussed. I decided to get an adapter for Contax/Yashica and try this manual lenses on my Canon DSLR.

Yashica ML 50mm/2 Front

The purchase
I got this lens from Richard for free - thanks :) I also bought one on swedish ebay Tradera, just because it was so cheap and I didn’t wan’t it to go unsold. They are easy to find, buy one if you can!

Side of the lens Yashica ML 50mm/f2

(more…)

When you deal with old lenses, you often get lenses and cameras you know nothing of, as a extra treat when you buying for something else. To be honest, often they are crap - but sometime you get real treasures. Lets find out which category this Tele-Tokina belongs to…

Front of the lens

The purchase
I bought this lens in a package with Pentax Spotmatic camera, Asahi S-M-C 55mm/1.8 lens, Soligor 35mm/3.5 (old preset), flash, bag, pocket tripod and some other stuff - it all went for about £40. The things I was aiming for was the Pantax camera and lens. The package arrived, and believe me, it was felt like christmas to unpack this stuff ;)

(more…)

There’s a lot of talk of Takumars and old Pentax-lenses. Old ones can go for quite a lot of money sometimes. So what’s so special about them? I got a 35mm (maybe not the most famous of the Pentax-lenses, but still…), lets find out how they work.

Pentax Super Takumar 35mm/3.5, an m42 lens.

The purchase
I purchased this lens from a friend on the net for 200 swedish kronor (about 20€). He keeps nagging about these Super Takumars, so I wanted to see what all the fuzz was about ;) He said the lens was worn, but it was just some external colour disappeared, everything else feels very good. Most of the time, the Pentax lenses go for some money both in Sweden and on ebay.

(more…)

135mm seems to have been a very common focal length of lenses. There are many to choose from. Because there was fierce competition, many of them are of good quality. Let see if this lens is one of the good ones…

Pentacon Electric 135mm/2.8

My purchase
I bought the lens on Tradera (swedish ebay) for SEK 57 (about £5) + shipping, without seeing much of it in the images of the ad. I was lucky, it is in good optical condition and only fault is that it is sometimes a little stuck at the aperture. Good ones is seen on ebay almost every day, so it’s a quite common lens.

(more…)

I suspect that many photographer wrinkles on the nose when I tell of my Helios-lens, manufactured in BeLOMO, Minsk in the early’80s. Surely it can’t be any good?

Helios 44-3 front

The states of former Soviet union actually made a lot of good camera equipment, and what I’m going to write about now is a copy from a Carl Zeiss-factory that ended up in the Eastern block after the war and “moved” to russia. Helios is a Carl Zeiss Biotar-copy. Lets see how it handles…
(more…)

A Zeiss-lens, extension-rings and shipping for about 25$? No it’s not a fairytale, I actually got this bargain from swedish ebay Tradera. It all started when I saw an ad with unknown lens marked “aus Jena”…

Carl Zeiss Jena S 135mm/3.5

My purchase
I could not believe my luck. Was I the only one connecting the mark “aus Jena” to Carl Zeiss? Actually, someone else competed with me about the final bid, but I still got this 135mm lens for only 140 swedish kronor (about 20$). When it arrived in the mail, I put it to good use immediately!

(more…)

This was my first manual focus lens. It might not be the greatest, but it is my eyeopener to old gear.

Pentacon 29mm with camera Praktica EE2

My purchase
I bought this lens attached to a camera on Tradera (swedish ebay). It was about 20$, with the camera. A lot of old stuff is cheaper in Sweden then on international ebay, there are not so many buyers. Did I make a bargain? Well, lets find out…
(more…)