The old Vivitar Series 1s, (largely?) manufactured by Kiron, along with
other lenses of the era did not have the advantages of design, materials
(esp. improved optical glasses), engineering and manufacturing that have
been developed over the time since they were designed. The next wave of
high end indepent lenses, the Tamron SPs and Tokina AT-Xs, maintained or
improved overall optical performance while reducing size and weight and
increasing focal range. For example, the famous Series 1 70-210mm f3.5
is larger and heavier than the Tokina AT-X 35-200mm f3.5-4.5 and almost
as long, bigger around and about the same weight as the Tamron SP
60-300mm f3.8-5.4 (all lenses I own).
The next design cycle, incorporating aspherical element(s) is less
available to us Oly MF folks, although the Tamron SP 28-200 f3.8-5.6
came in adaptall mount for MF. It uses plastic and has no macro,but is
amazingly small and light. Designs changed radically with this cycle to
accomodate AF and wunderbricks. Two touch designs only with the oddly
light feeling focus ring usually out on the front and lots of plastic.
Moose
Daniel J. Mitchell wrote:
Then there is the double weight, as someone else wrote it.
Why are these so heavy? Obviously, there's lots of metal and glass there
because they're big lenses, but I guess my question then is 'does more glass
make a better lens'?
I know that you need a bigger front opening to let more light in to make
the lens faster, but the Series 1s aren't super-fast; does all the glass
help to correct for aberrations or something?
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