Long lenses for Exakta

Hi,

 

Does anybody have any experience with long (above 300mm) lenses for

Exakta? What would be your recommendations?

 

Thank you in advance,

 

Miha

It's pretty hard to make a bad lens out beyond 300mm. The classic T-mount 500mm lenses should work fine, like the Spiratone. The small opening in the Exakta (and Topcon) bayonet mount may lead to some vignetting issues, it certainly does in macrophotography.

 

Longest lens I have is a 300mm 5.6 R. Topcor.

 

There's a Komura lens that's 500mm that looks pretty classy. Comes in a case, splits in two for storage. I think it uses Unidapter mounts (48mm threads), rather than T-mount, so you may also have to buy some other Komura Unidapter lens with the right mount if the lens doesn't come with it. My impression (although I haven't really done any testing) is that Komura (Sankyo Kohki is the company name) is a pretty good independent lens manufacturer.

 

Depending on how you would use it, you may also want to consider some of the trigger focus lenses, like the Novoflexes. That could get a lot pricier.

Hi Miha , the lens most common is the Telemegor 400 . My experience is with the Soligor 400 I used for some years. The camera a Varex II stopped working and I converted this lens to fit a Minolta SRT 101.

The lens produces very clear photos ,as all long lenses a stable tripod is a must.

I used the old Spiratone 400mm F6.3 handheld for shooting baseball, usually with tri-x long ago. We all dreamed of the Tele-Megor 300mm F4.5, or 400mm F5.5 . There was also a 400mm F4 from Jena, a 500mm F5.6 Orestegor too. In Mirror there was the whitish barreled 500mm F4 and 1000mm F5.6 from Jena. Later on Nikon and Canon made white barreled mirror lenses. Today Canon folks are sometimes upset that Canon copied Nikon, that copied Exakta, which copied telescope makers in the white mounts.

There are also many Topcon long lenses that will work well with the Exakta too.

There is a (rare and expensive) Topcon lens with f/2.8 at 300mm which fits the Topcon cameras. They use the same bayonet (and lens opening) as the Exaktas, however the Topcor lenses might be difficult to mount on Exakta bodies since the lens release button is at the opposite direction. I have heard that the distance scale of Topcor lenses is on the bottom of the barrel when mounted on Exakta bodies. Anyhow, it IS possible to use the Topcor lenses on Exakta bodies - except for the Topcor UV series which fits on the Uni/Unirex/IC Auto only.

Thank you very much for your kind answers!

 

I have everything up to 300mm well covered (the longest lens being CZJ Sonnar MC 4/300 with all black Exakta auto adapter). The lens has given me a sertious headache; it was easy with 20x30cm (8x12") prints, but it took me a better part of a year of practice and some hardware modification to be able to get sharp 40x60cm (16x24") ones.

 

Now, I'm (imprudently, I guess) looking for a new challenge - something longer. It's not hard to get good info on more down-to-earth vintage lenses, but haven't been able to learn much about the long ones for Exakta.

 

I'm aware of the Meyer G�rlitz Telemegors up to 400mm and 500mm Orestegor, CZJ mirror lenses (I don't get scared by lens heft easily, but these two can surely do the job!), various Kilfitts/Zoomars and long Ennas (up to 600mm I guess).

I'm not very familiar with Japanese lenses, both Exakta/Topcon bayonet and T-mount ones. They seem to be much rarer here in Europe than in the US.

 

Best regards,

 

Miha