Review Tair-11A 2,8 / 135

For the provided Tair-11A 2,8 / 135 lens, many thanks to Igor Tihan.

Tair-11 A  Is a fast prime telephoto lens with a focal length of 135mm and a maximum aperture of F2.8. Is considered one of the best Soviet portrait lenses. Nowadays, the cost of this lens just rolls over. In 2013, used the lens is offered at 200 cu

Overview of the Tair-11A lens

Overview of the Tair-11A lens

Tair-11A is very much appreciated by Western amateur and professional photographers. In my vote on best soviet portrait lens, Tair-11A takes only fifth place. The fifth position is most likely associated with the inaccessibility of the lens. 135mm focal length and aperture F / 2.8 allow very good control depth of field and easy to take pictures with a blurry background. Blurred background often very important in portrait photography, with blur Tair-11A copes with a bang.

An example of a photograph on Tair-11A. Bokeh taira

An example of a photograph on Tair-11A. Bokeh taira

As a solid Soviet lens relies, the Tair-11A is made of metal and glass - nothing more, but this adds a huge weight of 600 grams to the lens. In 1958, at an exhibition in Brussels, Tair-11 was awarded the highest award - "Grand Prix". The lens was produced in different versions, there is old "white taira", new “black” with slightly different frame rims. My Tair-11A black color, made at the Krasnogorsk factory.

Tair-11A on the Nikon camera

Tair-11A on the Nikon camera

Features and their application to obtain maximum image quality using Tair-11A:

  1. Aperture F / 2.8 and 135mm focal length - the strength of Tair-11A. For example, the whale lens that came with Nikon D80 - Nikon 18-135mm f / 3.5-5.6G IF-ED AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor had a 5.6mm F135, "Darker" Tair-11A at 2 steps (4 times). That is, for portraiture, this relative aperture is 4 times better. This is due to the fact that with a large aperture it is possible to select only a small area of ​​a sharply depicted space. For a portrait, this feature is indispensable, as it allows you to select a person in the photo and remove the background and foreground, focusing on the person.
  2. The large focal length of the lens allows you to use Tair-11 as a telephoto and telephoto opens up completely different horizons of photography, than standard lenses. The peculiarity of Tair-11A is that when focusing within 1.5-1.2 meters, it greatly brings the image closer, thereby increasing the focal length. Read more about this effect. here.

    Enlightenment of the front lens and the appearance of the aperture blades of the Tair-11A lens

    Enlightenment of the front lens and the appearance of the aperture blades of the Tair-11A lens

  3. Round aperture - the number of aperture blades is 20 (twenty) pieces, which is a very good indicator for shooting with the correct circles in the blur zone. What diaphragm you can’t install - you get an even, round bokeh without any deviations. In general, there are quite a few lenses with a normal number of aperture blades, so often bokeh is obtained in the form of “nuts, bagels or Dali’s works”. The diaphragm is truly round, and the bokeh is creamy. A large number of aperture blades can also be found in Jupiter-37A, Helios-40-2, Helios-44, etc.

    Photo at Tair-11A

    Photo at Tair-11A

  4. The quality of the pictures is just excellent, the lens is quite sharp, but at the same time it is soft for portraits, therefore it has the glory of a “female portrait”, for example, Jupiter-37A has the glory of a “male portrait”, since it is sharper. The lens bokeh is often compared to the most glorious lenses. Blur is rather unusual, soft, plastic - but as they say, the taste and color - all the markers are different. The lens is chromate, but this is nit-picking for experts, it is difficult for an average person to explain even what it is.

    Dimensions at different focusing distances of the Tair-11A lens

    Dimensions at different focusing distances of the Tair-11A lens

  5. Weight - the weight is large and plays the role of a stabilizer of jitter. With such a large focal length excerpt must be at least 1 \ 135 seconds. Weight allows you to slightly reduce the "shake" due to its massiveness and inertia. How to photograph without grease and movement, you can read in the article how take off.

    Tair-11-A sample photo

    Tair-11-A sample photo

  6. Built-in hood - a huge advantage, considering that Tahir is afraid of backlight, although the hood does not really save, but it improves the final result in the picture. The elongated hood blends easily and retracts.

    View of the Tair-11A lens

    View of the Tair-11A lens

  7. Sizes - the lens is quite large if you unscrew the focus ring by 1.2 meters (and at the same time the lens itself lengthens - protrudes the trunk), then it does not fit in my wardrobe trunk.

    Tair-11-A sample photo

    Tair-11-A sample photo

  8. The advantage of the interchangeable shank is simply irreplaceable, which allows you to easily use the lens with different systems (mounts).

    Tair-11A and native wardrobe trunk

    Tair-11A and native wardrobe trunk

  9. The lens is suitable for full-frame cameras. There will be a time when all photographers will switch to full-frame digital SLRs and there Tair-11 will be able to prove itself to its full potential. This allows you to use the lens without restrictions on full-frame cameras.

    Dimensions of two lenses. Tair-11A and Jupiter-37A

    Dimensions of two lenses. Tair-11A and Jupiter-37A

  10. The lens focus ring rotates to 360 degrees, which makes focusing very soft and smooth.

    Tair-11A 2.8 135 on the Nikon D700 camera

    Tair-11A 2.8 135 on the Nikon D700 camera

  11. The lens has a ring. aperture presets. The aperture has no fixed values ​​and may be set to any intermediate value.

    Photo at Tair-11A

    Photo at Tair-11A

I share my personal experience using:

If you can screw this lens onto a digital SLR camera, then most likely because crop factor matrices of budget and average camera prices, you will get another effective focal length. For Nikon it will be 135 * 1.5 = 202.5mm, for other systems this figure does not have a large deviation, but the essence remains the same. That is, cropping will occur as if you are using a 200mm telephoto on a 35mm film. And this, in turn, requires a lot of space in order to enter the desired into the frame. So for a portrait, you have to move a sufficient distance, and this will make you run a lot.

Example photo at Tahir 11 A

Example photo at Tahir 11 A

It so happened that I tested my newly made Tahir-11 when shooting a wedding, do not worry, no one was hurt, but the second photographer still asked: "And this is your one lens on the camera." Indeed, the lens on the camera looks strange, this is due to its pile of rings - for the diaphragm, for fixing the diaphragm, for focusing, the lens hood and the screwed interchangeable shank make the lens multisectional and strange. It seems that this is a designer that an experienced photographer must assemble in 45 seconds.

Photo at Tair-11A

Photo at Tair-11A

Old age is not a joy, but nevertheless the lens (my copy) is in excellent condition and will remain so for many years to come, since the quality hangs under the sign of 'Made in USSR'. Two Tair-11A lenses passed through my hands, one of the 88th, and the second of the 90th release. The latter did not bear the inscription 'Made in USSR'.

Example photo at Tair-11 A

Example photo at Tair-11 A

How to use with modern cameras?

'A' lenses with an interchangeable shank, such as the one in this review, are very easy to use on almost any modern digital camera (both DSLR and mirrorless), just select correct adapter. The replacement 'A' shank usually has an external M42 thread and an 'H' mount (similar to Nikon F). For use on modern cameras, the easiest way is to add the required adapter from M42 to the desired system or from Nikon F to the desired system to this shank.

Sample photo on Tair-11 A

Sample photo on Tair-11 A

If you are interested in this lens, or any other Soviet optics, you can purchase it by contacting the contacts from the manual optics section.

Sample Photos Tair-11A

All photos in the gallery below are shot on Nikon D700without processing. Reduced size to 3 MP and imprinted data from EXIF


Catalog modern brand lenses 'Zenitar' и 'Helios' can look at this link.


Comments on this post do not require registration. Anyone can leave a comment. Many different photographic equipment can be found on AliExpress.


Conclusion:

Tair-11A excellent portrait lens. Very interesting for its image, 20-blade aperture and a combination of aperture and focal length. You can still look at white version of Tair-11.

Material prepared Arkady Shapoval. Training/Consultations | Youtube | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Telegram

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Comments: 295, on the topic: Overview of Tair-11A 2,8 / 135

  • R'RёS,R ° F "RёR№

    I had two lenses, Tair-11A and Jupiter-37A. There were no complaints about Jupiter, and Tair (took photos of test tables) lacked sharpness a little in the open. At f / 3,5 it was already the same with Jupiter. But then it makes no sense to have a faster lens. In addition, Tair is slightly behind Jupiter in contrast. As a result, he parted with Tair.

    • Alexander

      Probably, you had some kind of unsuccessful or incorrectly exploited copy before you. Tahirs are quite sharp already with a fully open one. And the statistics are very good. Most of the photos in the review were shot at 2,8.

      • Alex

        Many black Tair on open soapy soft, they are far from Jupiters.

        • Maria Bardina

          This is not at all the advantage of Jupiter. Eka is unprecedented - a soft portrait) (by the way, I don't have software, face portraits, anyway). Of course, if you try to squeeze the maximum and photograph all the scenes, you can come to the conclusion that only the canonical triple of zooms from any line is needed.

          The main drawback, in comparison with Jupiter, is that Tair is sensitive to light, and in general it is inconvenient for them to shoot in a bright sun with an open aperture, like Helios, only a large pale (native is generally useless) saves them. It turns out not just a low-contrast picture, but also colorful, like a watercolor, from which it is problematic to extract something programmatically. At first I photographed only in the morning and in the evening. Even in cloudy weather, if there is a lot of light, the same problem is obtained. Jupiter has much better picture density, light-shadow transmission.

          • Alex

            In the open, I didn’t particularly shoot with it (nevertheless, the thought-software is very noticeable), I usually tighten it by 0,5 - 1 stop, and I can’t complain about the lack of contrast. In bright sunlight, the color is excellent. I shot tulips 2 years ago, I didn’t even have to edit anything in the editor, except for the exp here and there.

        • Maria Bardina

          I read here, many, it turns out, are removed with filters that add contrast - they are happy as elephants)

  • Sergei

    Can you place an advertisement for the sale of the Tair 11a lens in excellent condition? shrek60@bk.ru

  • Oleg

    Here are my works with Tair 11 A

  • Nicholas

    I have a "Jupiter-37A", I consider it soft-cutting. You wrote that "Tair-11A" is even softer, it's much softer. When photographing on a FUJIFILM with a FUJINON lens, I set the tones of highlights and shadows to -1, otherwise the image will be harsh, and when I set “Jupiter-37A”, I set the tones to 0, otherwise the picture will be too soft. Is it necessary to set the tones at Tair to +1?

    • B. R. P.

      soft-cutting? draws Jupiter 37 in any way, but not softly. Then your lenses are misaligned, maybe.

    • Alex

      You are talking about contrast, and Arkady about sharpness. Tair-11a is indeed softer at an open aperture. I’ll even say more, many copies are open soap-software, and I would call 2.8 a conditionally working aperture, although it may well be applicable for female portraits. At f4, it feels like (I didn’t shoot the world) the sharpness of the lenses is the same.
      In the spring I compared head-on Jupiter-11a (consider the same 37a) and Tair. I found out that at one aperture value, Tair washes the background a little stronger, but just so slightly, sometimes it’s completely impossible to see this difference. Jupiter has a small vignette on the open (on crop, it will be stronger on FF) and the background is a little more contrasting. Moreover, it is the background, not the subject. I think this is due to the slightly stronger blur on Tair. Actually, that's all the differences in the picture.

    • Ivan

      And what adapters are needed to install on the Fujifilm mount?

      • Rodion

        And there are two of them - medium format GFX and APS-C X. You need an adapter with an M42x1 thread for one of these mounts. What do you have?)

  • ba3lur

    in the table, the best portrait portrait is your tair in 3rd place and not in 5th ...

  • Mihailo

    My opinion is that made in ussr is not a guarantee of quality, an example of this is the scatter in the build quality of Helios. But made in japan means much more to old manuals.

    • Rodion

      Yeah, especially non-brand ones, but “Made In Japan”) There is such that the scoop is resting ...

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