Support
You can support this site without any cost or disadvantage at all by clicking this link to Amazon or the one on the left before buying anything – be it underpants, a cupboard, a TV, a pen, a lens or a camera. Amazon is the only shop worldwide, I’m really satisfied with to a 100%, so I have no caveats advertising them. Of course, you can also directly donate a small amount of money, e.g. the amount you would have spent for a magazine, with the button on the left.
Vivitar 24mm 1:2.0 (Serial 28..., so made by Komine)
A manual focus, fast wideangle from the manual-focus era, extremely well made and compact with 52mm filter-thread. It was made for all major mounts of that time, including Canon FD, Minolta MD, Nikon, Olympus OM, Contax/Yashica and Pentax. Mine is in Olympus OM mount and so is perfectly adaptable to Canon EF (EOS) today with the cheapest possible adapters.
It was competing with the original manufacturer's 24/2 lenses, of which especially the Canon FD is really extraordinary... and priced accordingly today still.
Vivitar themselfs sold two different 24/2 - lenses at that time. This one and one with 55mm filter-thread and serial-no.'s starting with "22...", which were made my Kiron ("Kino Precision"). These are completely different lenses, I have used both. While the main problem with the Kiron - version is oil on the aperture-blades, which most samples have today and that often prevents the aperture from being stopped-down at all and which is quite hard and complicated to clean, straight out-of-camera it is a lot more pleasing wide-open. I write "pleasing", not "better", because the problem with the Komine version (tested here) is a very obvious "glow" of wide-open results, which comes very near a soft-focus effect of special filters or the Canon 100mm "SF", which means "near to unusable" results in my opinion for normal subjects (except for when you are especially looking for this effect). But today we are blessed with all the possibilities in post-processing even with free software and so this is very easy to deal with: You simply apply an unsharp-mask with an extremely high radius (around 12(!)) and the glow is gone. When you have done this, you get wide-open images with still very low contrast but with a lot of detail even in the extreme full-frame-corners.
The final results achievable with this (Komine) version are a lot better than the ones with the Kiron - it just takes a step more to get there. The Kiron has far less detail, especially away from the center. Stopped down, the Komine is better even without PP.
Both versions, the Kiron as well as the Komine, were sold under their original brand-names, too, but while the Kiron is quite common under the Kiron brand, the Komine seems to be extremely rare.
Manual focussing is not a problem because of the wide field-of-view and depth-of-field. I use an adapter with focus-confirmation (the green spot and the focus-points light up in the finder when focussed right), but it isn't really necessary.
COMPATIBILITY
As mentioned above, it depends on the mount it was originally sold in. Olympus OM - versions (as well as Pentax, Nikon and Contax/Yashica) are easiyl adaptable to EOS. Of course, Nikon- and Pentax-versions work well on Nikon and Pentax - bodies, as do Minolta-versions on Sony. For other adaption-options, please search the internet - it depends on the flange focal distance: If the distance between the sensor/film was higher than it has to be for your actual body, adaption is trivial.
If you are planning to adapt a mount-version that originally would not work: These lenses' focus-planes are adjustable, so the manufacturers didn't have to build different optical versions for different mounts.
PRICE
Prices vary wildly. Kiron-versions with stuck aperture sell for around € 50,- on ebay, while mint samples reach € 200,- and more and prices are rising, probably because of fullframe-cameras becoming more common. Komine-versions are a lot harder to find than Kiron-versions, but Kirons nearly always have oil on the blades. Four or five years ago, I paid about € 60,- for my only slightly used Komine-sample in England including shipping to Germany, which was a real steal, just because it was described wrong. It even has the quality-control sticker still on it. Expect to pay at least € 100,- and if you are looking for this Komine-version, you'll have to search for a while... and remember: With low supply of only one lens now or then, there only has to be one serious other bidder to raise the price to astronomic heights...
ACCESSORIES
I don't really know. I think it was originally shipped with a quiver, but I don't own anything else but the lens itself. I would never use it with a shade, because it is so nice and tiny, that I wouldn't destroy this advantage with a shade.
It uses cheap 52mm filters, which were quite common at that time and aren't any more today - which is great, because this makes them quite cheap today and you can always use a 52-58mm step-ip-ring. And while the front moves when focussing, the filter - thread doesn't rotate, making the use of grads and polarizers (which I wouldn't normally use with a 24mm - lens) easy.
GREAT.
MECHANICS
Made in Japan.
Metal everywhere, the only thing not made from metaol is the rubber on the focus-ring.
Not the slightest hint of play or wobbling in any part, nothing has only a tenth of a millimeter play.
The markings are engraved in the metal and filled with paint.
The focus-ring is strongly dampened and the aperture-ring has distinct half-stop-clicks.
This is not any worse than the very best Leica- or Zeiss-lenses of that time.
GREAT.
The Kiron is only very slightly worse made, by the way.
ERGONOMICS
Again, this lens is great. This is a very small lens and while still relatively light, too, you still feel all the metal and have enough weight to believe, that this will last forever. Size DOES matter, also see Lenses: What's important?
The Kiron's focus-ring, which is located on the front of the lens, while it is next to the aperture-ring on this one, is located a bit better, because you can give the lens-camera-combination a bit more support there. Here you have to hold the body alone. But with such a short lens, this isn't a problem, no body gets front-weighted ever, not even the smalles Rebels (3-digit EOS).
The dampened focus-ring is extraordinary, the aperture-ring feeld great, everything feels hard enough to feel the quality and easy enough to be turned with a finger. The focus-path is quite narrow on the wider distances, only about one centimeter between infinity and 1.5m and progressively spreads towards the near end, with three centimeters between 0.3m and 0.5m. After you have got used to it, it is very good, because even at f/2 the depth-of-field of a 24mm lens is so huge at longer distances, that it simply doesn't depend on one meter more or less.
The lens extends a tiny bit, a few millimeters, when focussed, but the filter-thread doesn't rotate, so that grads and polarizers are easily usable.
There is a focus-scale without infrared-focus-indices but with a complete depth-of-field-scale.
OPTICS
Optics of this Komine are very good stopped down a bit and look awful wide-open on first sight, but in fact are extremely good, too, especially for a fast 24mm.
The minimum focus distance is 0.3m, which is close enough for the quite moderate wide-angle.
Distortion is good in comparison, roughly on one level or a little better than the Canon EF 28mm 1:1.8 USM.
Vignetting is really strong wide-open, maybe up to 3 stops darker in the corners. This is even visible on APS-C. The good thing is, that this vignetting is still fully correctable, you don't loose detail due to it.
The aperture is made of 6 straight blades, giving you quite smooth out-of-focus highlights with boring 6-ray-light-stars. Normal for that time, but not great.
I have no information on this lens' usability for for infrared-photography, sorry.
It's color reproduction matches my other lenses, but it seems to look quite saturated and "poppy" - the cheap 19-35mm Cosina-built lenses show a similar behaviour, but with other colors.
Lateral CAs (purple/green fringes along high-contrast edges), when not corrected by newer EOS cameras (or nearly all Nikons), can be strong with this lens, but quite well controlled in general. It may be around one pixel wide at max. and so roughly on the same level or a little better than the Canon 28/1.8.
Sharpness is one of the most overrated qualities of lenses. That being said, this lens is extraordinary, especially, but not only, in comparison to it's modern competitors. But this refers only to real sharpness, meaning very fine detail. It has low contrast and produces this "glow" I always mention wide-open, which makes pictures look softer than any other lens could ever be. But this is only an impression. Let me show you:
While f/5.6 gives this (5D Mark II JPG straight out of camera)...
... this is what it looks like at f/2. Full image, straight from 5D Mark II, JPG, 22MP.
Crop from the above.
This looks awful even at this really low magnifictation. And now, let's do some magic. Applying unsharp-mark with R=12, A=150, T=0 and then a second with R=0.7, A=150, T=0 probably is a bit more overdoing it, but to show you the effect:
Same image after PP.
And the same crop from the corrected image. Again, maybe overdone a little and not well focussed (the cars are out-of-focus), but you can see the effect.
And finally, this is a 100% crop from a full 22MP - image, extreme top left corner after this kind of treatment:
I won't bore you with more crops, if this is the extreme corner wide-open.
This is better than any other fast wideangle I have ever used or know of and definitely better than the sample of the Canon 28/1.8 I rented and tested once and a lot better than the new Sigma EX 24/1.8, a friend owns for his Nikon, which gets blurry just outside the absolute center of the frame.
My sample of this lens is centered well, with no significant difference recognizable between the four corners at any setting...
The focus-field is curved inwards a bit, but a lot less so than most modern wideangles. You can see this in the "glow"-example-crop above, but again, I've seen and expected a lot worse.
Flare is surprisingly well controlled for it's age. While I think, that a lens less prone to flare and especially ghosting is not always better, as at least ghosts can be a very nice tool to show the lighting conditions in your pictures, this 24mm flares slightly and produces some yellowish ghosts with a bright source of light in or just outside the frame. BUT the "glow"-effect it produces wide open of course is a lot worse whith bright highlights in the frame:
Uncorrected @ f/2, 10MP JPG from EOS 40D. This may be one situation you could really use the "glow"-effect: To show some smooth glowing lighting-effects.
I was just looking for a cheaper alternative to the modern fast 24mm - primes like the 24/1.4L, when I decided to try the Vivitars. I use this focal length so extremely seldom, that price was more important than anything else to me. The only situation I can imagine using a 24mm f/2, is indoors in very tight locations and that, for my kind of shooting, can only be family events - and only, if I really cannot avoid using such a wide lens, because the wide-angle - distortion (streched objects near the image borders) at 24mm is so strong, that it's not really suitable for people-shots. Even 28mm is already too wide for this and I own a fast 28mm, too. Then, sharpness or other optical qualities don't matter. Now I'm surprised and delighted by and glad having bought this lens.
And, by the way, the only few "serious" occasions where I can imagine using such a lens, still are events, people, so manual focussing will never be a problem. With a 24mm you have to always shoot people at more than 1m distance at the very minimum, because otherwise you get obscure grimaces with huge noses and tiny ears and long streched animal-faces. And above 1m or so, depth-of-field gets so big at 24mm even at f/2, that you can simply set something around 3m and everything will be in focus. At lower distances for static object, you have all the time you need for adjusting everything including focus.
I have never made use of the "glow" as a special effect, but I'm sure, there will be cool applications for this, maybe for strange light after dawen at the beach or something.
But even as a regular lens it is great, even when not my primary combination.
Alternatives
I did some comparisons all over the review: The most common is the other 24/2 Vivitar made by Kiron. I like this Komine more, but the Kiron is also a good lens. I still own the Kiron 28/2, which is also great. The Canon 28mm 1:1.8 USM and the SIgma EX 28mm 1:1.8 are 28mm, of course, but you should really consider these instead - in my opinion and for my style of shooting, 28mm is by far wide enough for occasions in which to shoot at f/2 - people. The Canon 24/1.4L or even the manual Samyang 24/1.4L is a whole other price-range, of course, so I don't consider these as alternatives. For me, this was a general decision: Do I really want or need a 24/1.4? Then I would have saved money for the Canon. But I answered this with "no" and so I decided to buy this lens "just in case" and to try it.
If you are just looking for a fast normal lens for APS-C, you should consider the EF 35mm 1:2.0. It is a great lens for a good price (near used prices for this manual one, in fact) and the difference in focal length is neglible here, as the crop factor lets these lenses have a similar field of view as a 55mm vs. 40mm lens on "fullframe". The advantage of the 35mm is, that, if you change to fullframe some day, you still have a lens very usable for people inside, while 24mm is usually too wide for people shots, as the wide-angle - distortion with streched objects near the image-borders gets too obvious here.
I won't buy (and adapt) the Nikon, Pentax or Olympus original fast 24's, simply because these are so expensive used, that I would always prefer an original Canon 24/1.4, which you can get for € 500,- used in it's first version and get a fully professional, autofocussing, extremely good optically lens in exchange.
Und Samsung ist ja doch eher ne recht coole Marke, da lohnt es sich ja zumindest mal zu fragen…
A word about supporting this site
I don’t run this site to earn money. I have a real job to earn my living with, a completely normal job. Since everything I write about here I have bought myself, for myself and with my own money from normal shops or ebay-sellers to actually use it, how much and what I am able to write about , depends on the amount of money that I can save and invest in equipment with good conscience. I share all this, because I want to, not to sell it. But when you find this helpful, maybe even as helpful as buying a magazine or book, of course you can support me, if you want. Your benefit is, that you help me being able to afford things to write about here.
You can use the “Donate” – button on the left to directly send a small amount of money (or a big amount, if you insist). You don’t need a paypal account to do so, every method is possible. If you decide to donate 99 cents, I’m thankful for it, because 10 people being as kind as you, make one new filter tested! The default currency is US $, but it works well with € or nearly any other currency, too.
But even more simple and without any cost or other disadvantage at all it is, to simply use this link to Amazon (or the one on the left) before buying anything there. For you it’s exactly the same as going there directly by typing the web-adress in your browser, you just klick this link first! It doesn’t matter, what you buy or where in the world you buy it, be it underpants, a pen, a cupboard, a lens or a Leica M9, be it in Germany, the USA, the UK or Australia: Amazon’s servers simply realize, that you came there through the link on my page and I get a small percentage of anything you buy FROM THEM. There’s absolutely no cost or other disadvantage for you, Amazon simply pays for my “advertisement” through this. I originally didn’t want to ever do any advertising personally. But then I decided to break this rule for Amazon. I’m a completely satisfied customer and buy everything from them. It’s the only shop in the world I would personally and on my private basis really rate a complete 100% in every regard. They have perfect service, even do call you back, answer emails with real, personal writing, extremely fast delivery even on Christmas-day, always perfect and completely new items, are never considerably more expensive than the very cheapest internet-sellers, have an extremely fast refund-system without being picky or having ever displeased me in any way and sell every good I have ever wanted to buy. They work on a completely different level than any retailer I have ever tried, and deliver it directly to me, without robbing me time and money to drive to the city or mall. I wouldn’t advertise them, if I wasn’t convinced, that it is OK to do so.