Sears MC 300mm/F5.6

There's one for sale in my area for $40 US. Is it worth it? Seems in good shape. Maybe more for an experiment? Any experience with this?

 

Probably OK IQ if stopped down to f11.

 

Expensive paperweight... :D

I would say its a reasonable price, especially if it's Nikon fit. It's hard to identify the actual maker, Sears being just the retail brand. Third party zooms of this era are often poor, but it's harder to make a bad telephoto prime with its pretty simple design, usually 4 element.

Zero experience with Sears 300mm f/5.6, but... Fancy to do trade, meet new people, might be advantage in later life, 40 dollars might be next to nothing or entire month of burgers, I do not know, 58mm filter seems very compact, check if thing is ai/ai-s compatible if required

I'm reasonably sure that Sears lenses were re-branded Vivitar.

 

Eric Sande

I wouldn't be turned off by the store brand name. Sears cameras and lenses were generally quite good, often being re-branded Mamiya and Chinon products, both respected manufacturers.

 

It may be a re-branded Chinon 300/5.6, possibly made by Tamron. As for Vivitar, they were not a manufacturer. The serial number shown also does not correspond with any published Vivitar serial numbers.

Edited March 1, 2022 by m42dave

I'm reasonably sure that Sears lenses were re-branded Vivitar.

 

This isn't saying much since all or almost all of the Vivitar lenses were made for not by Vivitar, although Vivitar did design lenses to have made by various other OEMs.

However, although I don't have this Sears lens, the design of "good," long refractor telephotos, back in the day, was easier than most shorter focal lengths. For just one example, a great number of cheap 400mm f/8 telephotos were often surprisingly good optics.

That's from Sears Winter 1979 catalog.

That's from Sears Winter 1979 catalog.

Excellent! Thanks!

Almost forgot that Ricoh was another big supplier of cameras and lenses to Sears:

 

https://www.aperturepreview.com/the-legacy-of-ricoh-and-sears