Asanuma 100-300 F5 lens anyone have one?

Not sure of the year on this as it possibly was made by Tokina a

little after 1970 but thought someone might recognize it. I found one

this weekend in its case in mint condition and it has a Minolta SR

mount. The lens is made like a bazooka I doubt there is any plastic

in this anywhere. My SRT is not light but this is about 6 times

heavier. It has a much needed tripod mount on it and a macro mode

that gets quite close. Anyone heard of this lens? I only saw one on

the completed auctions and it was in a kit of Konica gear cheap but

no good pic of it. I may want to get it just to show folks how things

were made years ago. It was made in Japan also. Has more of a gold

coating on the front lens and has a built in hood. Any help

appreciated.

I think the Asanuma name was used up until the early 1980's. It may have been made by Tokina. Like most short tele- to 300 zooms, it will probably be a bit soft at 300mm unless you stop it down a little.

Was thinking of this lens a little more thinking it reminded me of what lens it most looked like...The famous Vivitar Series one 90-180 macro lens. A friend had one of them. Looks like the same two touch system with tripod collar.It looks very similar to the Vivitar.....

Same build quality(very heavy)wonder if vivitars suppliers made one like it?

Rob,

 

Not familiar with your Asanuma lens but nearly certain that Asanuma was a Tokina trademark for a while. Tokina manufactured lenses were branded and sold by Soligor, Vivitar and others, perhaps including Hoya branded lenses.

 

Bill

 

http://www.vermontel.net/~wsalati/CasualCollector/t4_for_two.htm

This is a Tokina lens. It was made with the Vivitar name in both Fixed Mount and TX (interchangeable mount) versions. I have also seen this lens with the Hoya name. Mine is a TX version. I have also seen a few TX lenses with the Tokina name on them but I don't know whether this lens was ever sold under that name. It is a decent lens if you can live with the slow speed. Like many zoom lenses which are this long at the long end, keeping them steady is even more important than stopping them down.

I have the Asanuma 100-300 F5 lens. I is a great zoom for film cameras. I never had any problem with it. I have even used it on a digital camera body and the color aberration was no noticeable. I was told that Asanuma was bought out by Tokina but do not know if that is true or not. The double ring of focus and zoom did take some practice to master to shoot fast for action shots.

I do have a 100-300/5 Soligor CD serial nr 1750xxx filter 67mm. I haven't tested yet but could try it out a bit. Could be the same lens ? Do you have a pic of your lens ?