OM mount Kitstar 200mm f/3.3 on the Sony Alpha 700

The Kitstar 200mm is a lens that I acquired very cheaply on Ebay last year – it was an impulse purchase, really, since I knew very little about the lens other than it had a OM mount, and I was intrigued by its unusual maximum aperture. My intention was to compare it with my much smaller and lighter Olympus OM 200 f/4 prime lens, which I absolutely love. I had used this lens on a OM body last spring, and then put it away, meaning to get back to it sometime.

The Kitstar 200mm is a distinctive lens, easy to recognize. It’s all metal and the rubber covering of the focusing rings is reticulated, instead of being checkered as is usual. Kitstar was the in-house brand of Kit’s Camera and they had their lenses made on contract by various manufacturers, so its hard to tell who the original maker is. The lens is solidly built and comes with a built in hood.

I dont know of any lens makers such as Sigma, Tokina or Tamron who made a f/3.3 200mm prime lens, so who knows? Maybe its a f/3.5 rebadged as f/3.3. Kits Cameras was bought by Ritz Camera, and is part of their family of stores. Since Ritz has it’s own in-house camera brand (Quantaray), the Kitstar lenses are no more.

On the Sony Alpha 700, the 200mm f/3.3 lens becomes equivalent to a 300mm f/3.3 lens – that is really fast for a 300mm, and considering the price I paid for it, about $25 or so, it is a bargain. The weight of the lens makes it tricky to handhold, compared with the Sony 18-200mm (also equivalent to 27-300mm, but much slower, since it only goes to f/6.3 at the 200mm focal length).

Anyway, I could easily mount the lens on the Sony Alpha 700 with the Bower-made Minolta AF to OM adapter and took the lens for a spin. Here are the results. The Alpha 700’s anti-shake capabilites makes hand-holding easier, but it was still a challenge to avoid blurring. The Kitstar 200mm (apparent 300mm lens) has nice bokeh.

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Kitstar 200mm	Kitstar 200mm
Kitstar 200mm	Kitstar 200mm
Kitstar 200mm	Kitstar 200mm
Kitstar 200mm	Kitstar 200mm
Kitstar 200mm	Kitstar 200mm

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Kitstar 200mm

Kitstar 200mm

Kitstar 200mm

Kitstar 200mm

Kitstar 200mm

Kitstar 200mm

Kitstar 200mm

Kitstar 200mm

Kitstar 200mm

Kitstar 200mm

Kitstar 200mm

Photographed with a Sony Alpha 700 camera body and Kitstar 200mm f/3.3 OM Mount lens- I used a Bower Minolta AF-OM adapter and 72mm Polarizer (67-72mm step-up ring)

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Alphamagic by Ajoy Muralidhar is licensed under a
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text and images © 2007-2008 ajoy muralidhar. all product names, websites, brands and technical data referenced are the copyright or trademark of their respective owners. thank you for visiting alphamagic, have a great day!

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Sony Alpha 700 Macrophotography – II: D.O. Industries 135mm f/4.5 on Spiratone Bellowscope

Anyone ever hear of D.O. Industries? I had never come across any lenses from them until I suddenly ran into this little beauty on EBay, going really cheap. It seemed to be an enlarger lens, but it had what appeared to be a T-mount type threaded mount. A quick email ( an even quicker response from the seller) confirmed that the diameter of the threaded end was indeed 42mm, so I took a chance on it and picked it up, since I was looking for a 135mm lens that would fit on my Spiratone Bellowscope.

I already have a nice Spiratone 150mm f/4.5 bellows lens, but I’m the curious type, and more than that, the name of the 135mm lens intrigued me. The lens itself is small, and solidly built – probably 4 element (maybe 6). Not sure if it is coated. The body looks old and appears to have seen much use, and the paint has faded, but nice glass. It was probably a workhorse lens on someone’s enlarger for many years. It even came with the retaining ring, which is rare these days.

I did a little bit of research on D.O. Industries, and here’s what I came up. Apparently they were an importer and distributor for Fujinon lenses, and they also sold lenses under their own name (rumor has it that D.O lenses are made by Fuji. The optical quality certainly seems to bear that out).

D.O. Industries was started by a gentleman by name David Goldstein in 1972. The company is still around. They are now called Navitar, and you can read their timeline here. I’m glad they’re still around. They seem to be doing well in the current digital era with new imaging products. Innovate, Evolve or Die, right? The photography marketplace is pretty ruthless, with old-timer companies closing down almost every day.

In case no one’s noticed, practically every 3rd party lens company had names ending with –AR. It seems to have been vogue with photographic companies back in the day. You see products with names such as Vivitar, Albinar, Astranar, Rokunar, Lentar, Kitstar, Macrotar and so on. I’ve often wondered why.

When I tried to fit the lens to a T-mount, I noticed that the thread, while being very close, was just not right. It seemed to be more like 41mm, but the pitch was OK. I got around this by wrapping a piece of light cotton sewing thread on the lens thread, and it works just fine. Curious. As long as it works, I am happy.

The advantage of using a longer focal length lens on the bellows is that it permits a longer “stand-off” distance. A short focal length lens (35mm, 40mm or 50mm) can give greater magnification, but the focusing distance is very short, which means that the light is cut off drastically, and one has to use supplemental lighting. The longer focal length bellows lenses (75mm, 135mm and 150mm) can focus from 18 inches to as far as 3 feet away, which lets a lot of ambient light get to the subject. Besides, there’s room for the tripod legs if the subject is 24 inches or more away.

Since I was trying out this lens indoors, I just used a pedestal lamp with the Sony’s WB setting to Tungsten lamp. I used a Auto ISO setting. The exposure was 1/5 to 1/8 second, and I was able to stop down to f/8 to increase the depth of field. If I were outdoors in natural sunlight, I would have used 100 ISO and a smaller aperture.

The tripod permits the longer exposure without shake. To avoid inadvertent camera shake during release, I used the Sony’s self timer setting (Drive Mode button, and then select self timer 10 seconds). This ensures that there is minimal shake. The Sony doesn’t have mirror lock-up, but it’s superbly damped. The mirror return ‘snap’ doesn’t seem to affect the image in any way.

For subjects, I used some of my wife’s traditional jewelry. Without more ado, here are the pictures

D.O. Industries 135mm f/4.5 on Alpha 700

D.O. Industries 135mm f/4.5 on Alpha 700

D.O. Industries 135mm f/4.5 on Alpha 700

D.O. Industries 135mm f/4.5 on Alpha 700

D.O. Industries 135mm f/4.5 on Alpha 700

D.O. Industries 135mm f/4.5 on Alpha 700

D.O. Industries 135mm f/4.5 on Alpha 700

D.O. Industries 135mm f/4.5 on Alpha 700

D.O. Industries 135mm f/4.5 on Alpha 700

D.O. Industries 135mm f/4.5 on Alpha 700

D.O. Industries 135mm f/4.5 on Alpha 700

D.O. Industries 135mm f/4.5 on Alpha 700

The Bellows mounts to my Sony Alpha 700 with a standard Minolta AF-T mount adapter, and the whole thing goes on a cheap Velbon tripod. Nothing special. Here’s the setup.

D.O. Industries 135mm f/4.5 on Alpha 700 Setup

D.O. Industries 135mm f/4.5 on Alpha 700 Setup

D.O. Industries 135mm f/4.5 on Alpha 700 Setup

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Photographed with a Sony Alpha 700 DSLR, D.O. Industries 135mm Emlarger lens (Fuji??) fitted on a Spiratone Bellowscope. Auto ISO with Tungsten light WB setting. Exposure was 1/5 second and 1/8 second at f/8 from a distance of about 24 inches. I used a Velbon Tripod.

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Alphamagic by Ajoy Muralidhar is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
text and images © 2007-2008 ajoy muralidhar. all product names, websites, brands and technical data referenced are the copyright or trademark of their respective owners. thank you for visiting alphamagic, have a great day!

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Olympus OM mount lens on Sony A700 – Part II: George Washington Masonic Temple with a Zuiko 35-70mm f/4

I finally got around to visiting the George Washington Masonic temple in Alexandria – it’s a shame that I haven’t been able to get over there, since I work close by – but DC traffic is hard to deal with on any given day. I visited on Martin Luther King Day – since it’s a Holiday, there was very light traffic. However, it was COLD!

It was about 28 F at about 4 pm on Jan 21 – the wind chill must have been much lower, but I was inspired by the previous night’s game between the Giants and the Packers playing in -3F, -24 wind chill. If they can play in such severe weather, why can’t I get out and take a few photographs After all, it would only take about 15 minutes.

This monument has been getting a lot of interest from the tourist crowd since it featured prominently in Nicholas’ Cages thriller “National Treasure” – since then, people have been adding it their itinerary when visiting DC, even though it’s a few miles away. On the bright side, they get to visit old town Alexandria and the cool shops on King Street.

I was using the Zuiko 35-70mm f/4 lens on the Sony A700 with the Bower Minolta AF-OM adapter – The lens is an apparent 52mm-105mm lens on the Sony Alpha, and it’s great for general photography and portraits. It’s also a good lens for Architecture as well – but only if you are able to stand back a reasonable distance.

For street architectural photography, I’d still recommend a 35mm lens ( in the case of the A700, it would have to be a 24mm lens to get the apparent 36mm equivalent). In this case, I lucked out since the temple has a lot of open space around it, even beyond the parking lot. It’s easy enough to get far enough back to get a decent full length shot.

At 4pm however, the front of the Masonic Temple is in shade. The rear and side were nicely illuminated. It’s advisable to go there in the morning hours to get a well illuminated front elevation shot.

GW Masonic Temple, Alexandria, VA

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GW Masonic Temple, VA	GW Masonic Temple, VA
GW Masonic Temple, VA	GW Masonic Temple, VA
GW Masonic Temple, VA	GW Masonic Temple, VA
GW Masonic Temple, VA	GW Masonic Temple, VA

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GW Masonic Temple, Alexandria, VA

GW Masonic Temple, Alexandria, VA

Photographed with a Sony Alpha 700 DSLR and Zuiko 35-70mm f/4 lens with a Bower Minolta AF-OM lens Adapter. ISO 200, 1/125 at f/5.6

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Alphamagic by Ajoy Muralidhar is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
text and images © 2008 ajoy muralidhar. all product names, websites, brands and technical data referenced are the copyright or trademark of their respective owners. thank you for visiting alphamagic, have a great day!

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Olympus OM mount lens on Sony A700 – Part I – Zuiko lenses on Sony Alpha series cameras

A while ago, I had written about a Bower made Minolta AF to OM adapter that I was able to use on my Minolta 800si/Sony Alpha 700 to mount Zuiko and other 3rd party OM mount lenses.

The Bower adapter is actually a weak teleconverter since it has a glass element that permits infinity focus – since I got the A700, I have been checking out all my manual focus prime and zoom lenses – Zuiko, Vivitar, Sigma, Soligor, Panagor and Kiron primes and zooms. Most of them fit on the Alpha 700 without any problems – with the exception of the Zuiko 28mm f/3.5 and the Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 (more on this in another post).

There was a very interesting discussion on the DP Reviews forum regarding the use of manual focus Olympus OM Zuiko lenses on the Sony Alpha series cameras. I had participated in the discussion and shared the information I had about mounting manual focus lenses on the Sony Alpha 700. However, the DP Forum’s website seems to have had a technical failure, and about 5 days worth of forum topics have been lost. All the reply postings have vanished – except for the question itself. Bummer.

I’ll be posting more about Zuiko and OM lenses on the Sony Alpha soon…

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Alphamagic by Ajoy Muralidhar is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
text and images © 2008 ajoy muralidhar. all product names, websites, brands and technical data referenced are the copyright or trademark of their respective owners. thank you for visiting alphamagic, have a great day!

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