Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm 1: 3.5 Macro Focusing Auto Zoom VMC review

For the opportunity to review Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm 1: 3.5 Macro Focusing Auto Zoom VMC N / AI many thanks to Klochnik Roman, who sent me him from another area.

Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm 1: 3.5 Macro Focusing Auto Zoom VMC review

The “Series 1” is considered by the Vivitar to be a top class lens series. The Vivitar 70-210mm f / 3.5 in my review is indeed a very good lens. My Vivitar 70-210mm f / 3.5 has a Nikon F mount and has an N / AI lettering on the lens barrel, which most likely means 'Non-AI', but in fact, my copy is AI-compatible. How to use such old lenses without autofocus is described in the section on AI-S. I used Vivitar 70-210mm F / 3.5 with my camera without any problems Nikon D700 and film Nikon AF N8008s. With a film camera, the lens gives accurate confirmation when focusing successfully, with a green dot in JVI.

Of course, the Vivitar 70-210mm F / 3.5 is 'made in Japan', the assembly of the lens at the highest level is a large kilogram piece of metal and glass. The lens uses 67 mm filters. Vivitar 70-210mm F / 3.5 has a pump-action design (to zoom you need to pull or push the zoom ring), and this is a single-ring lens. The lens has one large rubberized ring, which is designed to change the focal length of the lens and to focus. I really like single-ring lenses.

Enlightenment of the front and rear lenses of the Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm 1: 3.5 Macro Focusing Auto Zoom VMC lens

When focusing, the front lens of the objective both rotates and travels back and forth. But the rear lens remains stationary both when focusing and when zooming - this is very good news for people who are worried about the cleanliness of the matrix of their camera. Focus ring rotates 180 degrees. The focusing is smooth. The MDF, in normal lens operation, is 2 meters.

The lens has macro shooting mode... To enable this mode, set the focal length to 210mm and press the white button on one of the lens 'ears', then turn the ears to the left until it stops. Despite the fact that there is even a separate switch for macro, with the Vivitar 70-210mm f / 3.5 I was unable to achieve the declared magnification of 1: 2.2, so the Macro inscription in the lens name costs more 'for show'.

View of the Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm 1: 3.5 Macro Focusing Auto Zoom VMC lens on a Nikon camera

The Vivitar 70-210mm f / 3.5 has a pronounced VMC coating. Aperture only accepts intermediate values ​​from F / 3.5-F / 22.0. The number of aperture blades is 6 pieces. The Vivitar 70-210mm f / 3.5 is a constant f / 3.5 zoom lens, which is only 2/3 stops smaller than f / 2.8. I even thought about replacing my Jupiter-37A 135mm F / 3.5 with this Vivitar, but I changed my mind, since Jupiter is much lighter :). This lens can even be an alternative to the 70-200 / 2.8, especially for video shooting.

Sample Photos

Everything is filmed on Nikon D700. Photos without processing, only reduced to 3 MP and imprinted data from EXIF. Vivitar 70-210mm F / 3.5 creates sharp and contrasting photos. The lens has an interesting bokeh. The vignetting of the lens is minimal. In general, this lens showed very good results.

Examples of photos on film, digitized in a photo lab, Lightroom auto level:

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Conclusions

Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm 1: 3.5 Macro Focusing Auto Zoom VMC is an excellent telezoom with constant aperture F / 3.5 and good image quality. The only pity is the macro mode is 'not real' and there is no internal focusing, otherwise this Vivitar is very good.

On Radozhiv there was another review of such a lens MC Vivitar 70-210mm 1: 4.5 Macro Focusing Zoom.

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