Arsat 3,5/30 for Contax and Hartblei 8/500

[henrik_berg]

Has anyone tried the Arsat 3,5/30 Fisheye on a Contax?

Log on to http://www.kievcamera.com and click on

Contax Lenses to check it out.

[kevin_ing]

Henrik,

 

Do you want to know about the 30mm Arsat and 500mm F8 Hartblei lenses themselves? Or do you want to know how they work specifically on a Contax 645?

 

I've used these on Kievs, Mamiya M645 and Pentax 645... I don't own a Contax, though.

[henrik_berg]

I would like to know about the lenses, sharpness durability and so on. Thanks for responding.

Henrik

[kevin_ing]

I think the 30mm Arsat is plenty sharp. But then again, I don't have a 30mm Zeiss Oberkochen lens to compare it against.

 

Luminous Landscape did a review of the 30mm Arsat here:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/lenses/arstat-30mm.shtml

 

Unfortunately, the author didn't do a very good job of focusing and says that the out of focus Arsat is not as good as the Contax 645's 35mm Zeiss Distagon he compared it against.

 

If you look at figure 4 the Arsat looks pretty bad in the corners... but then if you look at figure 5 it's pretty obvious that the Arsat was focused closer than the Distagon. No wonder the Distagon appears sharper.

 

Anyway. If you look hard, there may very well be a different in image quality, with the edge going to the Distagon. But considering the price difference, I would hope that there is a difference!

 

IMO, the Arsat is a fine lens and a bargain for the price. Color and contrast are both good. I've gotten nice, sharp pictures out of mine... but then again I don't blow up larger than 16x20 and only rarely at that.

 

Build quality is typical former Soviet Union "quality"... which means not as nice as German or Japanese stuff. Expect a little bit of dust between the lens elements and an aperture that isn't quite symmetrical when stopped down to the smaller settings. But functionally, it should be okay -- and even if you get a lemon, KievCamera is reputable enough that you should have absolutely no problem exchanging it for a new one -- this happens often enough.

 

If it's a lens you'd be using only occasionally, then I'd say to go for it. If you plan to use it all the time and your livelihood depends on it, maybe you should save up for a real Contax lens.

 

As for the 500mm F8 Hartblei... What can I say? It's a compact 500mm mirror lens. Okay performance. Handy when you need it... but mine stays at home most of the time. I prefer to suffer through lugging around my 500mm F5.6 Prakticar instead.

 

-Kevin

[henrik_berg]

Thank you for the input. They have an 5,6/500 Mirror lens also at

Kievcamera, have you tried it? I mail the man at Kievcamera, a mr Mikhail Fourman, and he recomended the 8/500 before the 5,6/500, do you have an opinion about that? The wheight is off course an issue, but one might think that with a one stop faster aperture this lens would be a favourite. Any thoughts? Henrik

[richard_p]

I bought a arsat 500mm/5.6 one year and a half and have not used it. For hartblei 500mm/8, Sam at kievforum provided very favorable inputs. He liked its portability and images appeared very decent after he used some filters to minimize the impact of air flows.

 

Richard

[henrik_berg]

Why haven?t you used the lens? What was wrong with it?

[richard_p]

Nothing wrong with my arsat 500mm/5.6. I'm more into portrait than landscape. I have not had an opportunity to play with it. The longest lens for my portrait is sonnar 300/4MC. Arsat 500mm/5.6 is also bigger than hartblei 500mm/8. I also have arsat 30mm/3.5 and it's very sharp to me. I bought both lenses from Mike at kievcamera. Arsat 30mm/3.5 has a 180 degree coverage on the 6X6 format.

 

 

Richard

 

Richard

[ulrik_neupert]

I use the Arsat 30 mm on my Hasselblad. It is a nice lens but prone to flare. Get a multicoated version.

 

Ulrik