Most pleasurable weather this autumn in Serbia allowed me to go out by the river and meet a nice family of swans…

I took the opportunity to test another of the old lenses found at the flea market. This time, it’s a Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm f3.5 Macro lens from 1978. So, let me introduce you to the participants of this post:

This lens was produced by Tokina for the American company Vivitar. It is designed as a professional lens with an aperture of 3.5 in the entire zoom range and with an excellent macro function. My copy isn't exactly mechanically perfect, but it's optically flawless, and it's by far the fastest telephoto lens I've ever owned. Of course, you can't expect miracles from a 40-year-old manual telephoto lens on a modern digital camera. The usual problems are chromatic aberrations and manual focusing, which with all the assistance options, is not reliable. The rule applies to all old lenses: Always take several shots in a row, one will probably turn out sharp. So, it’s not easy to ‘nail’ the focus, but when you manage to do it, magic happens. I have deliberately posted all photos without any processing, just as they came directly out of the camera (OOC). See first how full frame looks like, and then a 100% size crop:

My copy was only $20. In my opinion, more than acceptable for such beautiful portraits of swans…