Taking out an old kit lens

 Well I have a few old kit lenses, from the eighties and seventies. They came with some camera sets I bought and just put them  aside. This, because we were learned to use primes and the kit lenses of that time were no good at all, so that was told us. Today I decided to try one out. Lens of choice was the Vivitar 35-70mm f 2.8 -3.8. Vivitar in its time had some decent lenses, they did not made lenses themselves but bought them from lensmakers, some even from big names like Tomioka.

This lens on my camera turns into an 50 - 105mm. and is fully manual.

So on the street I went.

For such an old lens it works very smooth and the big focusring has a lot of travel, so you can focus quite precise.

The zoom range is very useable on the street and I like the colors it creates.

I was really enjoying using it. And you can come pretty close to your subject.

It can be pretty sharp if focussed correct.

My conclusion;

To say that kit lenses from that era are not good is just not so. Okay our modern kitlenses are way more superior but also way more expensive than these ever were.

All pictures I took with this lens were very usable, sharpness in the distance could be better, but that could also be with the adapter I use on my Fuji.

And the f2.8 was very usefull in some darker places.

Like most vintage lenses I find they perform better with film. But if you have an old kitlens somewhere in a box, unused and unloved. Take it out for a day, it might surprise you in a positive way.

And they bring back the joy, the feeling from the time we started to photograph.