For those following my Instagram there was a teaser picture of an upcoming review of an extremely awesome Tamron Adaptall II 35-70mm CF Macro a while back. I love the lens and have gotten some great shots with it, macro and other. But the downside of buying a 33 year old lens? It’s bound to develop a quirk or two. Unfortunately my Tamron has developed focus creep. At either end of its focusing range macro included, the lens is a gem. Any other point in its range? Look at it wrong (ha pun) and its out of focus. There are possible fixes for this so hopefully in the near future it will be back in action.
Great visually and buttery smooth action. Uncontrollable focus creep has got the Tamron out of any usable action for the time being. But what can take its place for macro duty while being even cheaper than its $40 +/- price? “Ebay time!”
Warily, I logged back on to ebay to begin the search again. After loosing a bid at the last minute for an original SMC Pentax FA-50 2.8 macro. I wanted the lens a little to much, even going as high as $90, it ultimately sold for $96. I would have loved the lens I’m sure, but it was way beyond a simple budget replacement for a budget lens. Time to look again with a little more brain and a little less heart. I hopped on ebay again (I love amazon but it isn’t the best for good older lenses) and opened up the lens section of the Pentax forums to double check what I was finding. More Tamrons, early Sigmas, tons of no name odd balls and great lenses with question areas too big to risk putting money down. In my search I came across several different types of lenses from the brand Magnicon. What was it? Who’s was it? The forums had a few reviews on various types and all were good. A quick google, lead to the info that Magnicon was the “store brand” for a now defunct except in name Canadian camera store chain called Blacks (think Ritz Camera here in the US I’m assuming) the lenses being produced by Vivitar or Tokina. Quality ranging from great to good depending on the model and who did the manufacturing, it was a risk but finding a supposedly excellent Magnicon “macro” lens at a great price, it was a risk I felt was worth it.
At $20, with overall good reviews of every Magnicon lens I could find info on I felt it was ok to take the risk on one of the companies lenses I couldn’t really find any info on. Worth it? Very much so!
A few days later and this Magnicon was in my hands. I was actually decently impressed at first looks. Full metal construction, comfortably weighty, soft but not “free” movement on the slide style focal length adjustment, pretty unused looking overall and..why won’t it fit on my camera? !@#$ It even says PK on the lens!
Now would be a good time to mention when buying film era third party “K” mount lenses. There might be cutting at times.
It turns out that some manual era third party lenses have a larger diaphragm lever flange than it really needs to be. No problem with a deeper bodied SLR but with a DSLR is becomes an issue and the lens will not sit flush on the body like it should. What do you do? Easy cut the excess off! Now I’m not crazy (well with this). This “trap” as it’s known is easy to find out about and so is the fix. I suggest Mark Roberts (https://www.robertstech.com) wonderful site that has a great write up on the issue as well as lens info and great blogs and photo sets. The short of it- a couple of screws, a quick dremel, and a quick cleanup and voila! From wrong to right!
Lens modification done a quick hold your breath test fit and it’s fit and worked perfect ever since! Now I can’t speak from experience on if older third party lenses can have issues on newer Nikons and Canons but I imagine since both companies have changed mounts several times since even the early 90’s adapters have fixed every like issue if there has been any.
After the fun of modifying the lens, the fit ends up perfect.
Once on camera the Magnicon has simple controls-pull in and out for focal length, twist for focus, a very nice clickable aperture ring with a push in lock button for auto aperture mode that at least in my case works on modern cameras. At first I was concerned with movement that happens holding the lens vertically as it will “slide” under its own weight but this turned out to be nothing once mounted no matter the shooting angle, as hopefully your not holding your camera by the lens. The rubber knurling is great and the focus action is smooth and responsive. The biggest negative being how close the aperture ring is to the camera body. While the movement and feel is actually embarrassingly satisfying, if you feel you will need to adjust aperture quickly or often, switch it to auto mode so you can control it from camera.
Alright, now with all the boring stuff out of the way how does the lens actually do?
In short the lens shoots amazing! Nice, crisp and and sharp. The sweet spot does seem to be in the f/5 range, with sharpness dropping off a bit at narrower apertures. Macro on a lens that can be had so inexpensively is by far this lens’s greatest selling point and also its biggest sales gimmick. While not bad in the least it should defiantly be labeled as “close to macro” or “macroish” with a whopping 1:5 magnification and the closest focusing distance being about 0.31m from subject. Compare that to the Tamron (also not rreeaallyy a true macro lens) 1:3.5 and 0.25m.
Aperture range is f/3.5-22 with f/3.5 being available in the entire 35-70 range. The lens is also threaded for 49mm filters.
The pictures below were taken on a quick mid morning hike. As you can see color is great, crisp and sharp. Bokeh is pleasing if not a bit muddy and a weird laser pointer type flare can happen if when sunlight hits the lens just right (Third photo). As you can see on the second photo, when seriously pixel peeking the focus is tack sharp. An extension tube is being purchased so an update may be coming soon!
In closing the Magnicon 35-70mm Macro shows that a lens doesn’t have to be expensive or “big brand” to be quality. It’s far from being top tier at any one thing, but it’s also not bad at any one thing. It’s just a good solid, pretty all purpose lens that shows that compared to many of today’s budget friendly options 20+ years ago even cost conscious companies still tried to put out quality products. Magnicon lenses can be found for any of the late 80’s-mid 90’s popular mounts- Nikon, Canon, Minolta and of course Pentax so defiantly pick one up cheap and have fun!
Next up will be a quick jump to something a little different, thanks for reading and stay tuned!