Tair-62T 95 / 2.5. Overview of a television lens from a reader of Radozhiva

Overview of the Tair-62T 95 / 2.5 lens specifically for Radozhiva prepared Rodion Eshmakov.

View of the lens adapted for Sony E on the Sony A7s camera.

View of the lens adapted for Sony E on the Sony A7s camera. increase.

Soviet lenses with the letter "T" are part of different purpose television systems. Tair-62T is very different from the more famous television lenses: Mir-1T, Mir-10T, Helios-40T, Jupiter-21T, Tair-11T, etc. First of all, the differences are in the frame format, the type of camera used and the design of the case. Moreover, it is possible that this lens is not even Soviet, but was already produced in modern Russia ... Why could such a lens be used? There will be no spoilers. Let us take a closer look at it: in this review, the Tair-62T, adapted for Sony digital mirrorless cameras, is presented.

Technical specifications (source)
Optical design: Tair, 4 lenses in 3 groups, see.
Focal length: 95 mm (not indicated on the lens).
Relative bore: f / 2.5.
Aperture: iris, without preset mechanism, 10 blades.
Aperture Limits: F / 2.5-F / 22.
Frame format (as specified by the manufacturer): approximately equal to 16 mm film strip.
Field of view angle (declared by the manufacturer): 4 degrees. 20 minutes.
Cover frame (after adaptation): full frame 35 * 24 mm.
Filter thread: 52 * 0.75 mm.
Back segment: 45 mm.
Features: focusing mechanism and thread mount to the camera are absent. Additional plane-parallel glass behind the rear lens.

Reviews of other Tair optical lenses:

Features of the design and adaptation of the lens

Tair-62T is a reliably assembled lens block with a diaphragm without a fastening thread and a helicoid. I didn’t save the photos of the lens before adaptation, therefore I give below the photos from the Web.

View of an unadapted Tair-62T lens. Photos from the web.

View of an unadapted Tair-62T lens. Photos from the web.

A long “tail” catches the eye, unusual for the lenses of this design. It contains a plane-parallel enlightened glass plate with a diameter of 18 mm, which does not change the properties of the lens and is not part of the optical scheme. Apparently, it is necessary to protect against external influences. Meanwhile, the rear segment from the tail of the lens is extremely small - to use the lens, you need to get rid of this part.

As it turned out, this is a non-trivial task. The fact is that the lens is extremely tightly assembled: each part of the case is attached with several screws made of solid steel (obviously harder than an hour screwdriver, though not the cheapest ones), mounted on paint or glue. Drilling screws also failed due to their high hardness. In other words, disassembling the lens turned out to be an impossible task for me. The only way out was to cut the shank in the area of ​​the thread of its fastening, but even this option cost two hacksaw blades, then several corundum circles for dremel: the body is also made of very hard and viscous steel. A reasonable question remains: why? But more on that later.

After getting rid of the shank, a view of the concave meniscus of the rear lens opens, which is quite large in size, allowing the Tair-62T to work with full-frame small-format matrices. The lens block was fixed in a duralumin helicoid (25 mm stroke), once made to order by mistake. The working distance was chosen for use with Sony mirrorless cameras, although theoretically there is the possibility of using a lens with Canon SLR crop cameras if you carefully remove excess metal around the rear lens and deepen the lens block into the camera to the extent necessary.

Tair-62T on Sony A7s.

Tair-62T on Sony A7s.

Tair-62T turned out to be quite compact, but heavy (due to unusual body materials) telephoto lens. For ease of use, he lacks the usual set of scales - the diaphragm ring has only marks of the maximum and minimum holes. I myself still did not mark the scale.

Adapted for Sony Tair-62T cameras.

Adapted for Sony Tair-62T cameras.

The aperture of the lens has 10 blades of a slightly unusual shape: with a small close, the hole is close to round, while with a stronger one a ten-pointed star is formed. The diaphragm ring has a groove for interacting with an external drive.

View of the shape of the aperture at ~ F / 4.

View of the shape of the aperture at ~ F / 4.

View of the shape of the aperture at ~ F / 8.

View of the shape of the aperture at ~ F / 8.

From the above photos it is easy to notice how much the Tair-62T yellow. Apparently, the lens owes its special function of light transmission to the used glass palette (lead and / or lanthanum glass), and not to enlightenment - it has a green-yellow color and should shift the transmission region to the blue part of the spectrum. But the effect of the lens material is apparently stronger.

View of the diaphragm and lens flare of the front lens.

View of the diaphragm and lens flare of the front lens.

It is interesting that Tair-62T has a thread for filters, and this is the most common thread 52 * 0.75. I didn’t get the filters themselves.

So, the Tair-62T is a telephoto lens capable of working with a full frame, which has appeared in a high-strength steel case for television cameras with a small frame and unpretentious color reproduction. What was it used for?

Lens Assumptions

The special workmanship of the case suggests that the Tair-62T is designed for use in harsh aggressive conditions: durable materials should protect the lens block from shock, shock, vibration and other things that plastic 18-55 probably will not survive. A shank-limiter frame with glass protects the hard-to-maintain rear lens from dirt and dust, and also reduces the amount of stray light incident on the small matrix of the television camera.
Perhaps only the aerospace industry can put forward such requirements to the lens. It was tempting to dwell on the assumption that the Tair-62T is one of the representatives of optics for aircraft's on-board camera cameras, as indicated on the Lens-Club website. However, collecting a few information about this product, I came across a rather unusual replica in one of the famous forums:

Penta Club forum theme screenshot

Screenshot of the Penta Club forum topic. Source.

Just awesome. KAB-500Kr - this is an adjustable bomb, some of its modifications were induced using a television signal, i.e. had high-resolution video recording equipment using a CCD. But, although the replica sounds convincing, it needs to be checked. Fortunately, I quickly managed to find photos of the homing head (GOS) of the KAB-500 air bomb:

Photo GOS air bombs KAB-500

Photo GOS air bombs KAB-500. Source.

Well! In the photo presented, a lens similar to that presented in the review with a yellow filter is clearly visible. Although the inscription on the lens body is unreadable, there is no doubt that Tair-62T is the eye of this sausage of death. Moreover, since the KAB-500 with a television seeker is still in service with the Russian Aerospace Forces, it is possible that the lens presented in the review was produced in the 21st century.

But the fate of my Tair-62T will be different from its counterparts - it found peaceful use for itself, despite the fact that it was supposed to be part of a deadly weapon.

Optical properties

Tair-62T, due to its purpose, is simply obliged to have a fairly high optical quality. Indeed, in the center of the frame it is very sharp with an open aperture: chromatism is invisible at all, there is a slight spherical aberration. However, the edges of the image are poor at the full frame: there are strong field distortions (mainly coma) and strong cushion distortion is visible: Tair lenses do not have parameters in the optical circuit that correct distortion, because their field of view is always small. In addition, Tair-62T has significant vignetting and therefore spins the background, especially on a full-frame camera. Most likely, the best option is to use the lens on cameras with the APS-C frame format, although some scenes are unassuming to geometric distortions of the edges of the frame.

When diaphragming for 1-3 stops, mainly spherical aberrations go away, field ones can be corrected only within the APS-C frame - because of this, even a fairly significant change in aperture (of the order of 1 stop) weakly affects the nature of the Tair-62T bokeh on a full-frame camera .

The contrast of the lens is satisfactory under normal conditions. It works poorly with backlight: it is prone to the appearance of a dense veil and bright highlights from the inner surfaces of the lens unit. However, since air bombs fly only down, for the Tair-62T it was clearly an uncritical flaw.

Tair-62T is prone to greatly distort color, and the influence is not only on the light transmission of the lens shifted to the yellow-green region: its unusual green-yellow enlightenment often brings in its reflexes. This leads to the appearance of a dirty green hue in the photo, which is quite difficult to get rid of. Tair-62T is best used with a blend.

Disadvantages make this lens strong: a bouquet of field aberrations gave Tair-62T a very unusual bokeh: the circle of confusion has a regular shape and an almost uniform distribution of brightness in the center, but at the edges of the frame the circles turn into lemon with a bright edging on the half nearest to the center. This type of bokeh is also characteristic of other four-lens high-aperture tairas, for example, Tair-11 135 / 2.8, OKS2-75-1 75 / 2.8 and Tair-41 50/2. However, Tair-11 has a more modest background blur, and OKS-2-75-1 and, moreover, Tair-41 do not work very well even with APS-C frames.

As a photographic lens, the Tair-62T has an optical quality that can be dryly assessed by the word “unsatisfactory” for a full frame and “satisfactory” for APS-C. But he has his own "romance" and his own charm.

Sample Photos

Below are examples of photos on Sony A7s, processing (color correction + levels) and converting photos to Sony Imaging Edge.

Conclusions

No one planned that the Tair-62T will capture the smiles of people and the beauty of nature, this lens is a brutal creation of the military-industrial complex. Tair-62T has good resolution in the center of the frame, unusual and bright bokeh (especially at full frame), but does not work well with color and light sources in the frame. In any case, the Tair-62T is just a bomb.

Thank you for your attention, Eshmakov Rodion.

You will find more reviews from readers of Radozhiva here.

Add a comment: Rodion

 

 

Comments: 25, on the topic: Tair-62T 95 / 2.5. Overview of a television lens from a reader of Radozhiva

  • Molchanov Yuri

    Very interesting review! Thank!

  • B. R. P.

    This has not happened before) On frames with bokeh flowers, it’s really bombing. Thanks for the review.

  • Eugen

    The picture is really not without appeal, especially in portraits. Thanks for the interesting review.

  • Natalia

    very cool photos with the emotions of people!

  • Pokemon

    I especially liked this photo:
    https://radojuva.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/tair-62t-lens-95mm-f-2-5-samples-40.jpg
    Pleasant bokeh, liked it)

  • York

    Interesting glass!

    I would have played with pleasure, to find ... Even without a tail, there are tail-makers ...

  • twm

    I see the followers of the "Sharpness across the entire field" sect have pulled themselves together :)

    I don’t know how much effort / correction it took, but the color itself and tonal transitions - this makes the lens happy. The same with the bokeshka and even the “soap” around the edges: in portraits, and even on flowers, it plays a plus. With proper cropping.
    Thanks Rodion

    • twm

      > pulled up

      As they pulled themselves up, they disappeared. Eniway, “unusualness” on Radozhiv is always a comfortable reading. And when the gallery does not disappoint - so in general: here and today - portraits and twigs of grass - please.

      • Arkady Shapoval

        One comment has been erased. The reason is cross-posting under different names

  • Dim

    It conveys well the prospect, but how much fuss with it, and the weight. Such, probably, can really break out a bayonet mount.

    • Rodion

      Even Tair-3A weighing 2 kg did not break the bayonet. This one weighs no more than 600 g - a lot for its size, but generally tolerable. The projectiles also weigh more.

      • Dim

        I remember in my childhood neighbors from the 4th floor threw the refrigerator from the balcony, it seems "Zim". So all round, he fell on the base on the asphalt and knocked out such a good hole, while the paint did not peel off and the door did not stop opening and closing. Perhaps this lens is also for multiple reset. :-)

        • Pokemon

          There were ZIL-ovsky (brand ZIL) refrigerators manufactured by KDH (Housing Home Refrigerators) ZIL. Managed to work in KDH as a student at the press.
          And why did they throw it out the refrigerator from… 4 floors? :-)

          • Dim

            It has a heavy weight, apparently from the same steel that was used in the Tair-62T 95 / 2.5 lens.

  • Koba

    All have their own personal opinion, of course. Personally, I really like the pictures from this lens. The fact that it was made for military purposes is more likely a plus, since it assumes an incredible strength of structures, nothing will happen to it for a long time. For military purposes, literally all optical manufacturers produce their products - from Zeiss to Nikon and Lake. Such production gives them a huge experience, which they then use to varying degrees in "civilian" optical devices. The bad news is that by military standards, civilian lenses are not produced, or they would have ruined the manufacturers themselves due to their extreme durability. I think that a small drawback of this review is the absence of at least a few long-range photographs, since, in theory, this lens should work them out especially well. It is also very interesting that in the missile homing device the lens is supplied with a yellow filter, that is, in theory, it is required to increase the contrast and neutralize the haze, or maybe the eye of the optical device works there in black and white or another mode, that is, not in color. The photographs also show high grayscale values, which is also important for black and white photography. Thanks for your review!

    • Joe

      “The bad news is that civilian lenses are not produced by military standards, or they would have ruined the manufacturers themselves because of their extreme durability.”
      1. What specific "military standards" of which country do you mean?
      2. Do photo lenses have a massive problem with fragility? In the world there are many old perfectly functioning and structurally durable lenses that have lost their relevance not because they fell apart, but as a result of replacing them with more technological analogs (with autofocus, electronic aperture control, corrected aberrations, high-quality antireflection, and so on).

  • Rodion

    Today we caught sight of the cover that came with this lens. It has the LZOS emblem on it - it must be assumed that the lens was made there.
    I also checked the possibility of installing a canon on the CZK crop: it is quite possible to install, but a fairly wide helicoid is required, preferably with an EF mount, and its stroke will be about 10 mm, which is quite a bit for such a FR.

  • SERGEY

    Swing swords at yelling!

    Wonderful article! Very interesting! Write more !!!

  • TSeg

    Radion is aware of the tsikaviy look of the tsyk and ridky about ”activa, as well as the robot for its adaptation.
    Douzhe garne boke vіn vіdє, on my glance, more beautifully from Gelios 40-2 from the overworldly twisting and "limochiks".
    I have come to grips with color transitions, peace and relaxation.
    If you wonder at tak from the slope, you get overwhelmed for the first time, but more beautifully in the SRSR it went to the so-called defense industry, and for pobut, for people - it went on the surplus principle (((

  • Rodion

    During a trip to LZOS, it turned out that the body of this lens is made of titanium :)

  • Sergei

    he is radioactive

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