MC Quantaray Auto Zoom 85-210mm F: 3.8 Macro N / Ai review

According provided by lens MC Quantaray Auto Zoom 85-210mm F: 3.8 Macro N / Ai many thanks to Boris Vyazovsky.

MC Quantaray Auto Zoom 85-210mm F: 3.8 Macro N / Ai

MC Quantaray Auto Zoom 85-210mm F: 3.8 Macro N / Ai review

MC Quantaray Auto Zoom 85-210mm F: 3.8 Macro N / Ai - old film telezoom. The sample from this review has a Nikon F mount and is analogous to AI lenses for Nikon cameras. Also Quantaray 85-210 was produced with other mounts. This lens does not have auto focus and does not have microprocessor pins for communicating with the camera. How to use such lenses with modern CZK you will find here.

MC Quantaray Auto Zoom 85-210mm F: 3.8 Macro N / Ai

MC Quantaray Auto Zoom 85-210mm F: 3.8 Macro N / Ai with an extended hood when focusing on MDF

The Quantaray 85-210 looks and feels a solid lens made in Japan. The focus and zoom rings are rubberized, and the built-in retractable hood is metal, like the entire lens barrel. In the extended position, the hood is well fixed and does not dangle. The flimsy built-in hoods on old lenses sometimes irritate me a lot.

MC Quantaray Auto Zoom 85-210mm F: 3.8 Macro N / Ai

Macro view of the MC Quantaray Auto Zoom 85-210mm F: 3.8 Macro N / Ai lens

The focus ring rotates approximately 120 degrees, while the front lens rotates and moves forward. In normal mode, the MDF is 2.5 meters. The lens has a special macro mode, which can be turned on by setting 85 mm of the focal length and pulling the zoom ring toward the bayonet. After such manipulation, a scale with a magnification factor for macro photography becomes available. To turn off the macro mode, you need to set the minimum magnification and pull the zoom ring toward the front lens. You can get a maximum of 1: 3 magnification, which is pretty good for a zoom lens.

MC Quantaray Auto Zoom 85-210mm F: 3.8 Macro N / Ai

MC Quantaray Auto Zoom 85-210mm F: 3.8 Macro N / Ai Rear View

A nice feature of the Quantaray 85-210 is internal principle of changing focal length - when zooming, the lens does not change its size. Also, when focusing and zooming, the rear lens remains stationary and does not create a vacuum cleaner effect. And of course the Quantaray 85-210 has a constant maximum aperture across the entire focal length range. I do not believe that the lens has real F / 3.8, but this number was taken for 'bait', because it sounds nicer than the classic F / 4.0. In fact, the difference between f / 4 and f / 3.8 is nothing - about 11%. If you want to use a lens with a really large aperture and very high image quality, I recommend looking at Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm 1:3.5 Macro Focusing Auto Zoom VMC.

MC Quantaray Auto Zoom 85-210mm F: 3.8 Macro N / Ai

Enlightenment of the front lens of the MC Quantaray Auto Zoom 85-210mm F: 3.8 Macro N / Ai

The lens has multi-illumination, but visually it is very faintly visible on the front and on the rear lens. Despite MC enlightenment, Quantaray 85-210 gives a cool greenish yellow tint to JVI and in the photographs.

Here is a snapshot with the highest possible magnification on the Quantaray 85-210:

Max magnification

Maximum zoom in macro mode

In macro mode, the focus ring has very little effect on the sharpness setting, and it’s much easier to focus on sharpness by rotating the zoom ring.

Macro Sample

Macro Sample

At f / 3.8, the lens has mediocre sharpness and very strong chromatic aberration, sometimes the photo just turns into a mess of bluish aberrations. If you close the aperture to F / 5.6, then sharpness and control HA comes back to normal, but still it is very difficult to achieve excellent sharpness with the lens. Vignetting is also noticeably strong at F / 3.8, and when I was shooting toys from Kinder Surprise on a white background, it was extremely difficult for me to get the right color rendering, as a result, I left a yellowish picture with BB 'Flash'. Also, the lens is very much afraid of backlight - all the pictures in which at least a little bit of the winter sun was covered with a white veil. However, you can get good bokeh.

The parameters shown in the photo gallery:
Everything is filmed on Nikon D700. On camera JPEG L (compression 'optimal quality'), without treatment (traces of dust on the matrix were removed in several photos). Functions: control vignetting, ADL, noise reduction at slow shutter speeds, noise reduction at high ISO - were off. All shot in Picture Control mode SD (standard mode): contrast correction - 0, brightness - 0, saturation - 0, hue - 0, sharpness - position 5 out of 10. The size of the photos has been reduced to 3 MP. The aperture value is indicated with '*' due to the fact that in the camera I cannot set the value F/3.8, but only the closest F/4.

MC Quantaray Auto Zoom 85-210mm F: 3.8 Macro N / Ai

This is what the MC Quantaray Auto Zoom 85-210mm F looks like: 3.8 Macro N / Ai on the ZK

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Results

MC Quantaray Auto Zoom 85-210mm F: 3.8 Macro N / Ai is a cheap and simple telephoto lens with 2,5x zoom. Interesting is the possibility of macro photography with 1: 3 magnification, internal zoom, excellent build quality, built-in hood, fixed rear lens and constant maximum aperture... The disadvantages are poor image quality at open apertures.

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

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Comments: 6, on the topic: MC Quantaray Auto Zoom 85-210mm F review: 3.8 Macro N / Ai

  • Mark

    Arkady, Thanks for the review!

  • nukemall

    I will add that the lens was released by the Japanese company Cima Kogaku, (little) known under its own trademark "Cimko". The company did not live long, did not create anything particularly interesting, but its lenses can be easily distinguished by the icon in the form of a hollow diamond.

    • Arkady Shapoval

      Thank you for a very useful addition, for some reason this lens is attributed to Sigma on the network.

  • Sergei

    Arkady, Thanks for the interesting review !!! Always really looking forward to the reviews.

  • anonym

    fagot!

    • Fili_ja

      why?

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