Rare 300mm lens surfaces on e-Bay

Well heeled or no heeled - once you have more than about five lenses you are a collector.

Overall my collection, of which I no longer have any idea of how many, has not increased in value.  But I seem to have made some lucky purchases which have been smile worthy if I ignore the ones that have gone nowhere or even lost 'value' as the real value cannot be obtained unless we sell.  But of course buying and selling makes us dealers and real collectors just collect and end up with a lot of interesting junk.

Thanks for the advice on this rare lens.

i am afraid that there comes a time when you have some great lenses in there but lack the ability to find the time to actually use them

Tom Caldwell wrote:

Well heeled or no heeled - once you have more than about five lenses you are a collector.

True most of times

Overall my collection, of which I no longer have any idea of how many, has not increased in value. But I seem to have made some lucky purchases which have been smile worthy if I ignore the ones that have gone nowhere or even lost 'value' as the real value cannot be obtained unless we sell. But of course buying and selling makes us dealers and real collectors just collect and end up with a lot of interesting junk.

Thanks for the advice on this rare lens.

i am afraid that there comes a time when you have some great lenses in there but lack the ability to find the time to actually use them

Rod McD wrote:

Hi Prof Hank,

I think we're in agreement there! It does seem to have a reputation based on thin air. If it was a quarter of the price I'd have been prepared to buy it, try it and post a few here for posterity's sake. And maybe keep using it if it's IQ matched my FD300/4L at well under half the weight. But it's a punitive price for rarity, and if it were cheaper, the competition would have seen it disappear from the eBay listing very quickly.

As you suggested, a modern zoom can achieve a lot. I've just spent a third of the Konica's price on the Fuji 70-300 I referred to in my OP, and it's turned out to be a very good lens. Same weight, and still fine at the long end where zooms tend to dip a bit. I doubt the old lens would be significantly better (at least on APSC).

Regards, Rod

Whilst taking about collector lenses ...

There is another lens area worth curious mention - the Komura brand - made lenses for Bronica Medium Format so they cannot have been that bad a lens maker. But their prices are Chameleon-like. Common ones are very acceptably priced and not bad lenses. But the rare stupidly fast ones sell for lottery numbers.

I did buy a sought after, normally expensive, 100/2.0 for what was a relative bargain price from Japan which turned out to be an excellent buy in pristine condition. But their cutting edge even faster lenses have always been a (huge) step too far for my Scots ancestry.

I did buy their 85/1.5 in M42 from New York for $40 but it was a train wreck - filthy from mouldy attic storage somewhere. But it cleaned up perfectly after a 100% strip down. The only issue was the serious one of being stored without a lens cap (object lens up). The object lens was severely pitted with gravel-rash etched fungus. Very nearly the bargain of my collection.

Oh to find a cheap one with perfect object lens ...... No such thing exists as far as I can tell - this is not a cheap lens to find.

Another lens with great physical size to reach credentials (M4/3 fans only need apply) is the Tokina 300/6.3 mirror lens made for 4/3 sensor. Excellent 600mm ff fov eq reach in a very compact package. Not that happy at or near infinity and would never replace a conventional lens for that type of photography or birding - but produces very acceptable images to bring mid distance shots closer. An easy carry lens in a corner of a bag to have when away from home where no other lens that small could do the job.

Cost me AUD$140 when it was on sale many years ago - more recent prices seem to ahve been higher. I think it was also sold re-branded as Opteka.

This older lens is a MF lens as expected but more unusually (for its age and price) is chipped to record EXIF.

Handy unusual, potential collectable, lenses need not always be expensive.

ProfHankD wrote:

Rod McD wrote:

A mint Konica Fluorite 300/6.3 has turned up on e-Bay. (I'm not the seller BTW - I'm just posting for interest.) They're rare as... but it seems they actually exist. Sadly it's beyond my financial reach and probably that of many others. If you've ever lusted after one of the very few made, have look because it'll probably be another decade before the next one turns up. It was one of the smallest and lightest 300mm non-reflex primes made at 580g and reputedly very, very good.

Very rare, yes. Expensive, yes. Probably optically very good too, although I don't know because there are ZERO shots taken with it posted anywhere, and neither are there any critical reviews.

As for size, that's 146mm long by ~560g. At about 1/85th that cost, my Minolta AF 75-300mm f/4.5-5.6 is 122-190mm long and 460g -- i.e., much smaller and lighter to carry. My smallest 300mm is a Spiratone f/5.6 mirror lens: 66mm long and 371g. I'm not saying those lenses are as optically good as the Konica, but a Fluorite element is not the only way to correct aberrations, and Fluorite elements are expensive and fragile.

In sum, I think this is a "collector" lens, not a "user" lens.

http://forum.mflenses.com/konica-fl-hexanon-300-6-3-ae-t68308.html

Ching-Kuang Shene wrote:

Well, I am interested in exotic stuffs but not in this one. This is an early lens and perhaps one of the very few lenses that used FL glass. However, 300/6.3 is a bit too slow and images I saw elsewhere revealed that this is a perhaps average or slightly above average lens. Its asking price reflects the rarity rather than the quality.

I agree with this - high prices do not always denote a great lens.  One of the best examples is the "command economy" where production numbers were specified rather than sales determined by consumer-demand/price.  The command economy has serious issues but potentially a good idea.  In the case of our ultra cheap and readily available Helios44 in its many derivatives.  It was made in many millions as the standard lens on as many Zenit camera bodies.  Whilst the original Zeiss lens was not so common and made in lower numbers and therefore more expensive.  Cheaper materials might leave the Helios somewhat behind but the idea of simply choosing the best and making it in huge numbers could be said to be a natural way to get good products out to your customers at reasonable prices.  When Leica sets high standards and sells at the market price required to be profitable then small volumes would tend to need an even higher price on the market. High price/reputation sorts out good from bad for the inexperienced.

I am not advocating the command economy as it hasn't really worked, but if we could rely on only the very best being made in volume then it might work.  But I suppose that we actually like being able to choose and buy from a wide selection and pay the asking price and 'hope' it is good value.  Or do we rely only on known brand reputation?  Isn't that the best part of the fun?

Command economy mistakes on the other hand are often not made in quantity and perversely any high price is possibly solely based on rarity. In some ways this is a back to front buyer's pricing logic.

On the other hand, the Nikon P.C. 400mm 1:5.6 ED and its predecessor that used special glass without ED marking are much better and faster lenses. Unfortunately, these two lenses, in particular the early one, are rare. BTW, this thread has some images I took with an equally rare Konica 800mm f/8 in AR mount. This lens has an earlier version, which had never beefed surfaced over the year. I guess this second version perhaps only received some cosmetic changes.

The Leica Tele-S R 800mm 1:6.3 is supposed to be rare, but frequently you saw 1 or 2 on eBay. This is strange. The sellers' asking prices are extremely high and I saw one of them on eBay for over 2 years. :-(. This Tele-S R 800mm 1:6.3 is an outstanding cemented triplet lens with the middle one being rare earth glass. The Astro Berlin 1000mm 1:6.3is also rare. Be patient and you will get a cheaper one. This is always my way of thinking in buy lens.

Happy shooting!

CK

Rod McD wrote:

Tom Caldwell wrote:

Handy unusual, potential collectable, lenses need not always be expensive.

True indeed. Not really collectible (as in rarity or an investment) but I've been pleasantly surprised by my Canon LTM 100/3.5. Made when I was born - in the 50's. Very small and light, cheap and good - far better than I thought it would be. Obviously a good year.

Cheers, Rod

I think I should start a thread on "cheap 200's".  The basis is just how much lower standards can we stand to get our hands on a very light and low priced lens to do the job?

For example the Takumars were sold in steps f5.6, f4.0 & f3.5

The f5.6 is light and pleasant enough the f4.0 is much larger and more acceptable in image and the the f3.5 is huge and needs its built in tripod mount for just half a stop. But there must be more than half a stop worth of better glass in there as one might guess.

Then the Canon FD 200/4.0 comes in and pretty well aces the Takumar f5.6 in size and image quality ...

But it deserves its own thread for there are a number of other cheap(ish) 200's about which need their laundry aired properly on a thread of their own.

I keep bumping across the idea that somehow collectors do or should think like a user.

They don't, the idea is to have something that not many others do have.

Sometime it is a about a single piece that is very hard to get or even unique ( in the true sense of the word) other times is a complete collection , for example , say, the Coronet Midget Camera.

Originaly a $2.85 camera , in 1939 (about $60 now) but if you have all of the colours it could be worth more than $200 for each (there were at least 7 colours made)

As a camera it is virtualy unusable but that is not what collectors are after.

As another somewhat silly example, sometime ago there was a discussion about a lens hood that sold for something like $350. That was because it is very hard to get and well, collectors are prepared to pay that sort of money so that they can say they have one.

Of course I know that most here do know that but ....

(no, I am not a collector but I have sold photo gear to collectors)