Vintage Lens Repair & Test - Makinon 28-80 Macro Zoom Lens
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- čas přidán 7. 09. 2024
- In this latest vintage lens repair and test video, we're taking a look at a Makinon 28-80mm f3.5-f4.5 Macro Zoom Lens, made in Japan in the late 70s or early 80s. A viewer had asked about a similar lens that wouldn't achieve infinity focus on his camera and wondered if the infinity position could be adjusted - I figured I'd have a look and picked this lens up cheaply - it then sat in my "to do" pile for several months, waiting for me to free up the sticking aperture blades. So finally I got round to doing this video, in which we'll strip the lens down to clean the oil off the aperture blades (oil on the aperture blades is the prime cause of them failing on old lenses like this). After that, we had a quick look at the focusing mechanism and the infinity end stops.
When I got round to testing the lens, which initially didn't perform well due to the Olympus OM to Micro Four Thirds adapter being too short - most, if not all, of these cheap lens adapters are manufactured too short, which isn't too much of a problem on prime lenses but it caused much more trouble on a zoom lens like this one. Having found a workaround, we got down to testing the lens and completing the video.
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Intro Music
"As Yet Untitled"
by GrumpyTim (available to download from GrumpyTim's Bandcamp page)
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Additional Music
"Winter Dreams"
by GrumpyTim (available to download from GrumpyTim's Bandcamp page)
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Nice work on restoring that lens! I've also had to fight with the infinity zoom on an Auto Revuenon 50mm F/1.4 that I cleaned, until I found the right helicoil position. Mine had six starts. That taught me to always remember to leave witness marks during dissassembly.
Hi Leon, you can understand why some people might give up on a lens if they've taken it apart and then reassembled it with the wrong helicoid start position, but, as you found out for yourself, with a bit of patience you can work it out by trial and error. You probably learnt more by getting it wrong and then fixing it than you'd ever have done if it had just gone back together correctly the first time.
There must still be something wrong with my Makinon lens - yes, it wouldn't have ever been a top quality lens, but it should work better than it does. Patrizio d'Alessandro added a comment to the thread started by Benedict that I might want to look for a decentered or misaligned lens, so I'll do a little investigation and see if I can improve things.
I do like the look this lens gives for video, it has a Cinebloom type look without having to add a filter. Great video as always, Tim.
Cheers David, the lens is almost there, just not quite, but another regular viewer has suggested that I look at the lens centering and alignment - not something I've had to check before so that'll be a learning experience. Hopefully I'll be able to get the lens to focus a bit better, particularly for distant objects, then it'll be pretty good. I think it could give some really interesting video footage on an APSC or even a full frame sensor - the bit where I was in the loft with a torch would be great with a bit more of the wide angle going on - not exactly like an anamorphic lens but not bad for a sub £20 purchase. If I can make it a bit better I'll post another video.
Thanks for the video. Appreciate tests with these older/vintage lenses. Whether it's one of the worst, or a hidden gem. Hah!
Cheers Jamison, I do like digging out the old, less known brands rather than just sticking to the stuff everyone else is talking about. Someone did leave a comment (although it appears to have been removed now) saying that their copy of this lens was as good as their Canon (or at least I think it was Canon) equivalent - which would suggest that I may well have a poor copy of this lens. Certainly some or all, of the poor focusing across the frame could be down to glass alignment within the lens - having looked a bit more I managed to improve things slightly by adding a shim to make the rear group of elements seat slightly squarer, however, the entire zoom mechanism is so sloppy that you can change the alignment just by varying how you hold the lens. If I ever see another one cheap enough, I might get it, just to compare and maybe do a follow up video, but I'm not prepared to throw much money at it.
Cheers for watching.
Nice video as always! I will probably never buy this lens, but it's still interesting to see how you repair it
Hi ohjajohh, Yes, this lens probably wouldn't be at the top of my recommended list but still interesting all the same. The general opinion from people is that it should be a bit better than it is at the moment, and it's been suggested that I check the lens alignment and centering, so I'll look at that and see if I can improve it slightly. Cheers for watching :-)
Hi Tim thank you for your effort for me,much appreciated, I will look at it in depth a bit later. I have the rear elements in the two separate sections one fitting inside other,if you have any other info I am interested,Thanks Tim
Hi Les, yes that's the same with my lens, the elements fit into the two sections of the housing, 4 in each part - I forgot to mention that in my list of the assembly order, but I'm sure you figured that out.
Nice work Tim. That landscape has an interesting feel to it. A little reminiscent of some kind of 3D effect.
Cheers Benedict, I was watching a small patch of sun moving across that landscape and snapped a few shots when it got to the part I wanted highlighted, so the lighting is about how I expected, but that lens is a weird beast, some of the trees look more or less in focus, while others are just plain blurry. It's always possible that someone has done something to the lens in the past but I don't think it's a reversed glass element because they all look like they're in the correct way round and that isn't the behaviour I'd expect from a reversed element. Maybe it just wasn't a very good lens at the time. I quite fancy trying another example of the same lens to see if the characteristics are the same, purely out of curiosity.
@@GrumpyTim Interesting as usual!
You should check for a decentered (misaligned) lens
I suggest to use minimum five Zeiss Siemens star charts (instead of buying them, it is possible to download and print them) to check.
You should run this test every time you buy some new piece of equipment (still under warranty...).
There are some videos describing the procedure, but I recommend to refer to what Roger Cicala's from Lensrental(dot)com published in his blog.
It is a good way to learn more by reading the rest of the material he wrote on his site.
Take care.
P.S. no need to run "volatile" disk tests, if you know what I mean...
Cheers Pat, I'll get on to that asap - I never expected the lens to be brilliant but it shouldn't be quite as bad as it appears to be, so therefore there must be something wrong - I'll get hold of some star charts and read Roger's stuff. It'll be an interesting learning experience and, assuming I can improve the lens, I might post a second video at some point in time.
Hi Grumpy Tim watched your video hoping that it showed the order of the rear elements as i mishandled them after cleaning fungus off them, the rear assembly has 2 parts to it with 2 clusters. hope you can help Les
Hi Les, I can't remember off the top of my head, I might have made notes when I took mine to pieces, I'll try to find the relevant scribbles. Failing that, I've recently got myself an OM-20 and I quite fancy using this lens on that camera occasionally, so I'm planning to strip it apart again in the hopes I can sort out it's rather poor image quality. I suspect it's an issue with the alignment of the lens modules - the entire mechanism is really sloppy on my copy. I also found that the rear lens housing didn't screw in squarely - this appears to be a poorly cut thread, so I made a little shim, which improved things a little. It is always possible that someone who worked on the lens in the past reassembled the rear elements in the wrong orientation, in which case I might be telling you the wrong order anyway!!! I'll see if I can take a look at it next week - if you haven't heard from me by the end of next week, give me a prod......
Hi Tim and thank you very much for that,I will standby,cheers just for now Les
Hi Les, I've just had my Makinon apart (well the rear groups anyway), and I've listed the element order below - it's still entirely possible that my lens has been tampered with before I got it and one or more of the elements has been inserted incorrectly - I haven't had time to do any additional testing yet. Anyway, here's what I found in my lens:
Makinon 28-80 f3.5 - 4.5
Rear groups, starting from the front:
The first two glass elements are very difficult to tell apart, they’re both 18mm diameter, convex at the front and concave at the rear. Looking from the side, the front most element looks very fractionally thinner on it’s edge than the second element.
Assembly order
First element 18mm dia, convex side to the front
Spacer, 1.1mm deep
Second element 18mm dia, convex side to the front
Spacer, 1.2mm deep
Third element 18mm dia, convex side to the front, clearly thinner than the first two elements.
Spacer, 0.95mm deep
Fourth element 18mm dia, concave to the front, flatter side to the rear.
Lockring.
Fifth element - 16.5mm dia, quite a thick element, concave on both sides, but the more concaved side goes to the rear.
No spacer
Sixth element 16.5mm dia, convex side to the rear.
Spacer 1.55mm deep
Seventh element 17mm dia, convex side to the rear - this element will slop around in the lens housing until it’s spacer is installed - the spacer has a recess that the lens actually sits inside.
Recess spacer
Eighth element 18mm dia, convex to rear.
Lockring.
Thanks for this video
Just received my lens this morning and came to the same realisation as you about using the macro ring to get spot on focus
I’ve not found any info on using the macro function though
Could you explain how to use it please ?
Hi Paul, I haven't got that lens with me at the moment, but from memory, the macro function is supposed to be used with the lens at it's widest setting of 28mm. From then on, it's like adding macro tubes, you set the macro ring to your desired position first, then adjust your focus ring or the position of the object in respect to the camera to achieve focus. It'a always a bit of a juggling act - if you're using macro tubes, they generally come in sets of three different lengths, the shortest for a small amount of macro going up to using all three together for lots of macro - your depth of field is always pretty small once you get into macro focusing. Unlike macro tubes (or extension tubes as they are often called), the macro ring on the Makinon lens is infinitely adjustable, albeit with a fairly short range. A Set of bellows gives you the greatest macro functionality but that's a massive juggling act of adjusting the bellows, the focus on the lens and the position of the object in relation to the subject.
With the Makinon lens, you can make your life a little easier by setting the focusing ring to minimum distance, then moving the macro ring to your desired position and finally adjusting the camera position in relation to the subject - this is particularly the case if you're shooting hand held, where you can gently rock backwards and forwards until your subject is perfectly sharp, then snap your shot.
@@GrumpyTim Amazing
Thanks so much
Hi, awesome video!
I actually have one of the more rare versions of this lens in a pretty mouldy state as well. It is a 28-80mm with a constant F3.5 aperture FD mount one. Mechanically it is good, but I don't have the time and energy to deal with it. It is a rare lens and it's not easy to find much data about it, so I thought if you're interested I might be able to post it down to you for a video repair. I'm happy to gift the lens to you if you've got space for it for an exchange of some real-word tests, so we can fill the void up with some actual usable info.
What do you think?
Peter
Hi Peter you're welcome to send the lens over if you'd like, but I have no idea how soon I'd get round to fixing/reviewing it - the "to be fixed" pile is quite big at the moment, and I've slightly moved away from camera lens videos for a bit. The general opinion on the existing 28-80 that I have is that it might be a bit of a bad one - sure I didn't expect perfection, but it was pretty bad. The construction was either just plain bad, or worn, or damaged in some way because the lens slopped around quite a bit, causing the elements to sit out of line. Additionally, the rear cluster of elements had a faulty formed screw thread which caused the whole group to sit out of square - I improved that by adding a shim on one side. It would definitely be interesting to see if another copy (either the constant aperture like yours or the more budget option that I have) works any better.
What mount does this Kamera have. I dont find any information about this in the Internet. Please Help me!
Hi Felizian, my copy of the lens is Olympus OM mount, but Makinon would have been making lenses for many of the popular systems at the time such as Canon FD, Pentax PK and so on.
Is there by any chance that you the orientation of the multiple pieces of glass in the rear lens houseing cause my doesnt focus right and ive come to conclusion that the rear lens housing was mostly likely tampered with by previous owner 🙏🙏🙏🙏
Hi Gecko1, it's definitely a possibility that one or more of the elements aren't in the correct location, OR have been inserted the wrong way round. There are only certain ones that can be swapped because the tube reduces in diameter, meaning that there are probably three different diameters of glass in that section. I have done a little bit of experimentation juggling the elements but I haven't found the solution yet. There is one particular element in there which is pretty much impossible to tell the difference between it's two sides - that one was my first suspect, but it didn't cure the problem. I'll have a look at it again another day, but for now I've just put it on one side.
Another definite potential cause of at least some of the trouble is that the entire lens assembly is sloppy, holding the mount end of the lens you can rock the front section by quite a few degrees, which isn't going to help with lens alignment at all. I haven't examined another copy of the lens to see if it's just my copy or if they were just generally badly made.
I would kind of like to get the lens to a state where I could trust it, because it would be nice to use it on my OM-20, but I'm not wasting any film on it until it produces a good test shot on a digital body.
@@GrumpyTim thank you for the info 🙏 and i never thought of first testing a lens on a digital body before trying it on film 🤦♂️ would have saved a few roll from going to waste 😅
bjr j'ai réussi a transformer un TELEOBJECTIF MAKINON en telescope j ai vue les volcan lunére en plein ecran , sur terre jai VUE un arbre De montagne a plus de 29 KM j'ai vue un homme assis a 9 KM EN pleint ecran mais de plus que je zoome le TELEOBJECTIF prend de longuer jusqu a 2 Metre ET Y A PAS DE MIROIRE refétente peus ettre si il y avait une se serais moin longuue
Salut galaxie, wow, tout cela semble très impressionnant
Hi galaxy, wow, that all sounds very impressive.
@@GrumpyTim merci de reagire et bon courage