Vivitar MC Macro Zoom 28-200mm F3.5-5.3 zoom lens . (Minolta MD mount)

Vivitar have never manufactured lenses themselves, but they have designed, sourced and sold many of them, and full marks for innovation and a particular honesty are in order. The design aspect brought the zoom lens into the mainstream of photography and the rare honesty was their attempt to be straight about what the term macro really meant. To Vivitar of the 1970s and 1980s, macro meant life-size, or 1:1 magnification, not the macro term used freely on many makers’ zoom lenses, some of which did not focus particularly closely. This early Super Zoom, made for Vivitar by Kobori, focuses down to 1:4, or one-quarter life-size, and for this Vivitar coined the term “macro focusing zoom lens”. Vivitar zooms were marketed as amongst the first true zooms of high quality, so let’s see how that stands up today, using the 36MP Pentax K-1 and an M42 screw thread version of the lens.

Mount : Minolta MD.

Type: One touch zoom lens. Push-pull with Macro ability

Focal length: 28mm to 200m.

Optical construction : 18 elements in 16 groups

Aperture : f/3.5/5.3 to f/22.

Blades : 6x

Closest focusing : 1:4

Dimensions :74x110mm

Weight: 650 gram.