New Lens: Vivitar 135mm F2.8

A new lens came in the mail yesterday, a Vivitar 135mm F2.8 OM mount, that I picked up on ebay. I haven’t had much time to play with yet due to chores and that it didn’t come with a lens cap, so I didn’t want to chance damaging it in the field. Nevertheless, according to conversations on various Olympus photography related forums, this lens is supposed to be a decent prime compared to the Olympus Zuiko equivalent and for a cheaper price, just $40 dollars, I had to buy it.

This older style OM mount lens means that I do not have the fancy features of auto-focus and contrast-detection that I would normally get from modern digital lens, Moreover, this lens millimeter length doesn’t exceed my longest lens, just 15mm short of my 40-150mm F4-5.6. Yet being a prime lens, its fixed focal length should provide me with better sharpness and greater low light shooting due to the two stops wider aperture at the equivalent range of my telephoto zoom. Better yet, coupled with the 2x teleconverter that I have for my OM mount lens, this lens can be made into a 270mm F5 (I think), providing me with a lot more range than I’m used to having. This all being the nearly the same size as my telephoto zoom lens with just a bit more added weight. I can definitely see the benefit in this for street photography.

So far with this test shot here, the depth of field is a bit smooth and less circular than at F2.8 than I hopped. Nevertheless, this image (focusing on the big “S”) I find is still decently sharp enough, I just have to practice a bit more with manual focusing to get the hang of it.

I’ll post more pictures when I take this lens out for a thorough test Friday.