In praise of lenses #5 - 135mm Soligor preset

[peterr]

Soligor 135mm F3.5 preset

Another piece of my photography history that I have rescued from the back of a wardrobe, and given an airing during the lockdown, is this early 1960s 135mm telephoto lens inherited from my father. Like many telephotos of this vintage it has a T2 interchangeable mount, but although ancient, the optics are still clear and the 12 diaphragm blades produce an almost perfectly circular aperture giving wonderful creamy bokeh. Who made this lens is uncertain as Soligor were a brand rather than a lens manufacturer (Tokina and Komine are among the possibilities), but what I do know is that it is extremely sharp at aperture settings of between F5.6 and F11. An advantage or disadvantage, depending on which way you look at it, is that it slows down the picture taking process as, being a pre-set lens, you do have to remember to manually close the aperture down after focussing.

The image of the apple blossom below was taken with the lens set at an aperture of F5.6.

[billf]

Excellent separation of subject from the background and very sharp.
I can imagine the stopping down after focusing is a bit fiddly but the results are very good.
Cheers
Bill

[peterr]

And the good news is that old pre-set lenses like this are usually as cheap as chips.

[peterr]

From the serial number and a bit of research it would appear that my old Soligor was made by Komine. I tried to get a shot of it mounted on the Pentax K1 (as used to get the apple blossom shot), but it just didn't look right, so here it is mounted on the camera for which it was originally purchased nearly 60 years ago.

[billf]

It looks very well made and obviously in good condition to produce such high quality photos.