Optomax 135mm 1:28 Lens Review

Raw unedited shot on a sunny day.

I’ve never bought or been given a lens that I couldn’t get results out of but this one perplexed me a little bit. Sure in the editing you can create something pleasant but my aim is always to capture that moment that perfect without editing. I know most of those people who never saw film won’t care about these things, but to spending an hour on a image after taking the photo is a bit like going hunting and then coming back & eating a microwave meal when you have fresh sea bass in the fridge – That statement made more sense in my head 🙂

So here we have the Optomax 135mm 1:28 Lens. I try to avoid brands I’ve never heard of but this was just £2 and brand new and I have a Solagor 135mm lens that I rather like so home it came from a trip to Lyme Regis. It’s a nice looking lens and externally very well-made, add some silver to the focus ring and it could be mistaken for a very expense lens indeed. And those little orange arrows are a nice touch, this is a aperture lock or setting. Turn the inner ring to the setting you want and then while in the process of taking the picture you can turn the outer ring to allow more light if needed.

So take a look at the first results;

Not impressed? no nor was I. But in Lightroom nothing is a lost course as you can see below, but the is more to this story…

It seems this lens doesn’t play well with my focal adaptor, not only does it make the focus very iffy but it also washes the scene. So I decided to give this lens another chance but this time with a standard adaptor. This produced more pleasant colours as you can see below but still the focus was amazingly difficult. More down to luck than anything. I pride myself in my hand-held shooting so it hurts to think images are pinpoint perfect but find they are blurred. Naturally this is a slow glass but even the results where often nothing like what I expected. So fair to say this will probably find it’s way to the back of the cupboard. Saying that, add in a bit of luck and some editing I got something 🙂

So let’s see what a little editing will be now.

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