Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Lens Porn: Olympus F1.2 50mm Prime Lens

We got a half-dozen of these in at work today, and they are so beautiful it makes me wish I had a camera, just so I could use one. Just to photograph these was a joy. It didn't hurt that these are faster (way faster) lenses than your average bear, at 1:1.2.

Olympus OM-System Zuiko Auto-S 50mm 1:1.2 lens, coming and going:

Olympus 1:1.2 F1.2 50mm Prime Lens

The glass on these is literally flawless.

Perfect Lenses!

They are completely free of dirt inside. It's like looking down over the side of your boat in the sea off the coast of Belize:




No, these are more clear than that.

Water-clear

In addition to the clarity of the glass, the aperture fairly snaps open and closed. A couple had oil creeping onto the petals of the iris (and the price I put on those reflects it) but most could open and close faster than I could move my fingers to operate them.

These lenses were mounted on a piece of optical test equipment as a fixed-focus focusing element. The aperture was left wide-open. The focus and aperture adjustment rings were held in place with a little daub of silicone, most of which came right off with a razor blade, and the rest will probably come off with a fingernail.

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The legends are strikingly clear, except on the circular polarizing filter, which is worth like $10 to us, and I didn't bother cleaning. The ring is a mounting adapter. These were bolted in place.

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I wasn't sure how to price these, so I aimed the middle of the road. I hope somebody wants this for $250. If I were looking for this particular prime, I sure would.

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(P.S. please excuse my blatant copy/paste of the images I put in the ad, including our company watermark)

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Hey David, are these lenses for sale? If so then let me know how much at mwright(at)intellimass.com.

Thanks. Mal

Vote For David said...

I keep forgetting to post the update! The worst one of these, with super-slow, oily iris blades, sold for $300+. The finest went for over $500. All gone, first time up on eBay, and all with multiple bids. As my boss would say:

"Aaaaw maaan, we put those up waaaay to cheap!"

Gone. Long gone. Sorry. Next time I'll try to remember to post a link to the ad when I'm talking about something we have for sale.