I had the 70-210mm for my OM2-SP back in the day, I initially bought the Vivitar Series-1 70-210 but it wasn’t as good, the zoom barrel would stiffen up as you turned it if recall, so I took it back and exchanged it for the Tamron which was much lighter too.
Tamron are underappreciated, they have lenses just as good as the primary manafacturers, and of course I do like Sony and Sigma, great companies to work with too! Our reps for both are great, recently they let borrow sonys 90mm macro!
There was a company in the past , Spiratone, that made inexpensive lenses and other rather gimiky and eccentric photo equipment. It was geared to the budget minded amateur shooters. Thanks Mr. Woo and John.
Of the adaptal 2 series lenses I have two and with the code chart you can tell which lens company made it for Tamron and their specifications. Very well-made lenses.
It would be interesting to hear Mr. Woo about the "war" in the late 80s with autofocus, also about Nikon's reluctance to use fluorite (Canon smash them with their FD Fluorite super telephotos, and then with a fast and effective autofocus system; reporters migrated en masse to Canon during the 90s precisely for that) The funny thing is that Nikon only got on the fluorite bandwagon in 2016, with the 800 f5.6 (and told us for decades that those crystals weren't that good lol)
I am not so well versed as Herbert Keppler or Erwin Puts in optical design. What I do know is the lens makers did their best to bring the 3 primary wavelengths to focus together to achieve the best results. When all three wavelengths are focussed together there are no color shifts resulting in accurate colors and sharpness. Before the advent of apochromatic lenses the best were the acchromats. 2 of the three wavelengths focussed. The terms spi chromatic, fluorite, extra low dispersion glass refers to the same attempts to correct color distortion due to the unfocussed wavelengths. Fluorite is a crystal grown in the lab that have such characteristic. Apo chromatic glass were produced by special formulation.
I have the Adaptall 90mm f2.5. Terrific lens. The adaptall type system would be really beneficial in respect of mirrorless cameras. A question for Mr Woo is why doesn’t anyone create such a system? Is it because the electronics in the lens - and not just the electronic contacts and wiring between the lens and the camera - need to be specific to the camera mount? Or is it because most mounts (Canon, Leica-L mount) are proprietary and currently restrict the access to the mount such that it isn’t commercially worthwhile? One exception is probably the Sigma APS-c lenses which are made for Canon-M, Sony E, Nikon Z, MFT, Fuji X etc. Or is it because a different software (with any updates) would need to be used each time you change lenses? Looking over my list of reasons why it doesn’t exist for mirrorless, I see there are good reasons why it wouldn’t work, at least for AF lenses!
yes, as you have mentioned making interchangeable lens mounts that could accomodate electronic as well as mechanical linkages was challenging, adding af functions makes it even more challenging , and getting all the licensing from the camera brand was not always feasible.
I will not say which is my favourite lens, rather which I liked. As I was in photo retail for many years I got to try nearly all of them. I did own the sp90/2 5, sp 70&210/3.5 & sp 17/3.5 before. Well it is like the scapels on the operating table, they all have their use. Your favorite will be the ones you need most for the moment the sp series were all good yet some non sp ones were quite unique.
