Photax 135mm lens

Many years back I bought a Photax 135mm Pentax thread lens. Using

my Asahi again, I find this lens - although it's heavy and has to be

completely manually operated - gives me very good results. Can

anyone tell me anything about Photax lenses?

 

Thanks

 

Rob

Photax is an old name in camera accessories etc, maybe going back to the 1930's or earlier(?). All the Photax lenses I have seen (1970's-80's) are generic Japanese lenses that Photax has marketed in the same way as Hanimex. By and large, they have been very cheap and good value for money, with quite reasonable performance even out of their pre-set T mount lenses.

The first new lens I bought in England around 1980 was a pre-set Photax 35 f2.8 for 15 pounds, which gave nice sharp punchy Kodachromes at f8, with image falling apart a bit into the corners. I would still use it, but have better lenses now.

If you can get old 'What Camera Weekly' issues from that period, they were frequently reviewed favourably. I think a photo of the lens being reviewed frequently accompanied the review.

The Photax name has been used all over the place.

 

My guess would be if it's marked "Made in Japan" it probably came out of Cosina(Nicoh) or Kyocera(Tomioka).It seems these two co.'s made lenses for just about everybody,at one time or another.

James - Don - thanks for that info - yes - it has 'Made in Japan' on it. Specs: f=135 f2.8. Heavy piece of tackle.

 

Rob

There were hundreds (if not thousands) of brand names attached to lenses. 135f2.8 and 35f2.8 lenses were especially common being the most popular focal lengths in the early days of SLRs. Many of these lenses are perfectly good because the lens formulas for these focal lengths are well known and not difficult or expensive to build. You will not notice the difference between these lenses and better quality lenses unless you enlarge to 8x10 or bigger and maybe not even then.

The Photax 135mm f2.8 was one of the great bargains of the early 'seventies. I used one on a Praktica for press work and paid for the whole outfit with the first sale. That particular lens is long gone but I came across another specimen a couple of years ago, for less than ten pounds, and it's just as sharp and contrasty as the one I had originally. In Britain, Photax sold a whole range of products, including lighting and darkroom equipment, so they might have thought it a good investment to heavily discount a particularly good version of what was then the most popular focal length, in order to gain a reputation for quality products.

Is this the same <a href="http://www.photax.se/index.htm" > Photax </a> you are discussing? If that is the case you can still get a metal and glass 135mm 2.8 with Pentax-K bayonet from them, now branded as "Phenix", (<a href="http://www.photax.se/indx/indxobj.htm" > go here </a> and scroll down) for SEK 2085 (USD 270, EUR 225). <br> <br>

 

See <a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00FxuW&tag=" > this </a> thread also.

Hi guys - yes - the 135 f2.8 lens - in Pentax thread. Has two separate aperture rings - one to allow you to see the photo wide open - and the other the taking aperture ring. No automatic adjustment. Easy enough to forget to close down, but the lens takes well contrasted sharp images.

 

Thanks for all the replies and input.

 

rob