Vivitar Series One 70-210 F3.5 Kiron Mount Version

Vivitar was a photo marketing company founded in 1938 under the original name Ponder and Best that made and sold photographic and optical equipment. From the 1960s onwards marketed third party lenses and in the 1970s the 283 flash which I affectionately call the sledgehammer due to the amount of power it had. While Vivitar focused its efforts on the enthusiast market, they put some serious research and development money on the Series One line aimed at the professional market. The most popular lens was the 70-210 F3.5 Macro zoom available in Nikkor, Canon FD, Olympus OM, Minolta MC/MD, Pentax M42, and K mount and I think Konica too. The first version of this lens was made by Kino Precision/Kiron Optical of Japan.

Sadly as time went on and Vivitar changed suppliers, their Series One line got degraded through cost-cutting in the engineering process. Today's Vivitar Series One shouldn't be touched with a barge pole.

I love this lens. They generally can be found for under $100 CAD ($76USD) and you shop well you can find one that's pretty much mint. You want the 70-210 f3.5 with the serial number starting with 22 and that denotes Kiron made the lens and find one with the VMC coating. I would also find the OEM lens hood which is collapsible over engineered rubber.

It is a mid-1970s designed zoom telephoto lens so it weighs like a boat anchor, handling however is easy. The Vivitar Series One 70-210 is a classic push-pull design. You have the ability to take macro photos too. I haven't tried that yet. I'm very happy with the performance with this lens and I'm glad I have it in Nikkor Ai, Olympus OM, and Canon FD mounts and fills a need when I don't want to take a pair of telephoto lenses with me.




Camera: Nikkormat FTn, Vivitar Series One 70-210 F3.5 Macro Zoom Lens.
Film: Rollei RPX 400, RPXD 1+11.


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