View Full Version : Heads-Up Hexanon 60/1.2 LTM
foto_fool
06-23-2007, 07:34
Noriaki at MatsuiyaStore is selling one of these rare beasties:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=005&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&viewitem=&item=150133044305&rd=1&rd=1
(Note all the usual disclaimers - no interest, relation to seller, etc.)
On his site Stephen notes that this lens sold for about $1600 new. A Hong Kong seller has another listed with BIN of $3000.
http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-Konica-60mm-f1-2-limited-fit-LEICA-Noctilux-50mm_W0QQitemZ320129559935QQihZ011QQcategoryZ30063 QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
More lens than the Canon 50's but less than the Noctilux? Somebody buy these before I make a fool of myself again :bang: .
charjohncarter
06-23-2007, 08:09
Don't post stuff like this, it's too hard to resist. If I don't know about it, then I won't want to buy it.
What camera was that lens made for?
60mm seems like an odd focal length.
It's a Leica thread mount lens.
CameraQuest
06-23-2007, 09:01
get a used Noctilux for about the same price
faster & a better performer.
Stephen
get a used Noctilux for about the same price
faster & a better performer.
Stephen
It would be great to see some photos documenting this, Stephen.
Due to the additional focal length the DOF is very similar.
Here are some photos taken with the Hexanon 50/1.2:
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=41611
Outstanding, IMO.
Roland.
60 does seem like an odd focal length, but it's in a range that fascinates me. The common step up from 50 is 90 or 100, especially in the SLR world, with 75 being a standard in the RF world. But for isolation, e.g. candid portrait when one is near the subject, 100 is too long about 90% of the time. I don't have a 75, so can't comment. I do have a Helios 44-M in M42 mount, and it is 58mm, close enough for jazz to 60mm. My first trip out with it I found I really liked that focal length. The next thing is to try it for candid portraiture.
Earl
(OT: I sold my M42 body, so now am looking for a replacement.... looking for an Olympus FTL or perhaps a Fujica ST-801.)
get a used Noctilux for about the same price
faster & a better performer.
StephenThe last 6 used Noctilux lens sold on eBay averaged out at $3438/per. One of them ("like new condition") sold for $4300. :eek: This Hexanon is at $1425 with 9 hours left. Let's see if it gets near the Noctilux average.
Spider67
06-23-2007, 11:43
60 does seem like an odd focal length, but it's in a range that fascinates me. The common step up from 50 is 90 or 100, especially in the SLR world, with 75 being a standard in the RF world. But for isolation, e.g. candid portrait when one is near the subject, 100 is too long about 90% of the time. I don't have a 75, so can't comment. I do have a Helios 44-M in M42 mount, and it is 58mm, close enough for jazz to 60mm. My first trip out with it I found I really liked that focal length. The next thing is to try it for candid portraiture.
Earl
(OT: I sold my M42 body, so now am looking for a replacement.... looking for an Olympus FTL or perhaps a Fujica ST-801.)
Same with me! I loved the older model of the Helios 58mm as it was between norma- and telelens and with it minimum range of 0,5 mm even somthing like a Makro lens for me. I used it with an adapter on my Nikon FG (as the FG had no DOF control button). I even used it on my FM. With time i learned that i also had been extremely lucky with thge adpter I had as other adpters of the same compyn simply did not work
foto_fool
06-23-2007, 16:00
get a used Noctilux for about the same price
faster & a better performer.
Stephen
I sure haven't seen any Noctiluxi going for less than $3k lately - and certainly not a 50mm/f1.2 Noctilux. I'm with Roland on this one, Stephen - do you have comparison photos?
I don't know why I'm even THINKING of bidding! I have the Canon 50/0.95 and a Zuiko 50/1.2 - both of which I love dearly. And this IS a weird focal length...
But 50mm framelines should be OK - kind of like using the 35mm framelines with the 40mm Nokton. It is just such a beautiful piece of work! And the Hexanon 50mm/2 is so good. And it would work out to a 90mm on the R-D1 (where my Canon front-focuses). AAAARGH!
Nah, not going to do it :angel: .
- John
alan davus
06-23-2007, 16:26
Yeah, I've been watching this auction for a few days salivating, but having just bought one of Matsuiya's 35UC Hex's two weeks ago, I can only watch with some regret. Yes 60mm is an unusual focal length but I could find heaps of work for it to do. Notice it comes with it's own viewfinder, lenshood, Konica filter and leather bag. Konica really did things well. By the way, anyone out there in possession of the 50 2.8 collapsible Konica put out in the same series with the 35 and 60 LTM's?.
It's a good thing I changed my ebay password to something hard to remember, a dollar bill serial number, and left the dollar bill in my office. I can't sign on to bid. The last time one of these L mount Konica lenses was mentioned here I ended up buying one.
Now I just have to sit and watch. That's a good thing. That's a bad thing.
The Hong Kong seller also has the Hexar RF-50/1.2 set new for $4k.
Konica really did things well.Yes they did. Konica has always been about the highest quality. During their production heyday years the Hexanon lenses were used by the Japanese Ministry of Industry as the reference standard by which the quality of all other manufacturers' lenses were judged. Quality was always of the utmost importance to Konica and its a tragedy they bit the dust.
The Hong Kong seller also has the Hexar RF-50/1.2 set new for $4k. This one (330138797213) looks like new and is a bit cheaper...
$1,800 and change. I think the last one went for a little over $2k. Either way less than a Noctilux or WAY more than a Canon 50/1.2. I don't get out at night enough to justify that.
$1,800 and change.Yep, I was watching. I did faintly consider bidding, but would not have won it anyway. And that's just as well, nice as it would be; I just don't use such wide apertures, and one has to be so very careful about precise focusing. I do have 40 f1.4 and 50 f1.5 and those are sufficient.
foto_fool
06-24-2007, 07:06
Well I'm glad that's over and done. The winning bidder sniped in in the last two seconds of the auction, and $1,900 is probably a deal. With only 800 of this lens produced, at least there probably is NOT a next time.
- John
This is the second time this year. Maybe the second time in less than 6 months. There will be another time. Anybody have a feel for how big the lens is? What size filters? The Konica 50/1.2 uses 62mm filters. That's big by RF standards. Just curious. I wouldn't buy one of these lenses.
Member StuartR has (or had) this lens and could tell you about it. I think it has a bit of a short focus throw for a lens this fast and it looks big too, but maybe it is a real value if you have LTM cameras. Stephen was a bit off in his pricing; that price was only 54% of the Noctilux eBay average. A used Noctilux has gone up around 75% in the last year. :eek:
Gabriel M.A.
06-24-2007, 08:06
Well I'm glad that's over and done. The winning bidder sniped in in the last two seconds of the auction, and $1,900 is probably a deal. With only 800 of this lens produced, at least there probably is NOT a next time.
I hate ePrey snipers.
Gabriel M.A.
06-24-2007, 08:08
get a used Noctilux for about the same price
faster & a better performer.
I'd love to get my hands on a Noctilux for $1800! Where can we get some?
Dang it, that was one nice deal, and seemingly a good lens; I haven't seen an image rendition taken with the Konica RF lenses that hasn't pleased me...as far as the lens is concerned.
Trust me on this one: the buyer is a good man. It is OK to get a good deal.
On ebay if you don't snipe you don't buy anything, sad reality, if you bid before the bitter end you just give a target price to the snipers.
ebay bidding is like being at a Casino. Sometimes I get very busy at work and I forget about a super deal that I bid on, to find it having sold for a very low price. It has happened many times to me.
On ebay if you don't snipe you don't buy anything, sad reality, if you bid before the bitter end you just give a target price to the snipers.
I apologize to those who have read my thoughts on this before, but if you think it through very carefully you will realize that an early proxy bid will always beat a 'snipe' bid -- provided that the proxy bidder is willing to pay more.
If the snipe bidder matches your high proxy bid, you will still get the buy because on eBay, ties go to the bid that was placed first.
Your proxy bid doesn't get upped until somebody tops it, so entering an early bid does not 'give a target price to the snipers.' They have no way of knowing what maximum bid you entered except by bidding more and more until they top it -- in which case you wouldn't have wanted to buy anyway, because the price would have exceeded the amount you were willing to pay.
In other words, the only way to "win" an eBay sniping fight is to pay more than you had intended -- and that's not my idea of winning!
Buying sensibly on eBay is really very simple: Decide what is the absolute most you'd be willing to pay for the item you want, then enter that amount immediately at the very beginning of the auction. The proxy bid system will assure that you're the high bidder until your limit is reached (at which point, remember, you wouldn't have wanted to buy the item because it's over your price limit.) You will automatically beat any tying 'snipe' bids because your bid was placed first.
Don't be deceived when you see auctions in which your maximum bid was, say, $50 and you read that the item sold for $51. Non-sensible bidders will read this and think, "Drat, if I had just sniped at the last minute with a $52 bid, I would have gotten the item."
This is a fallacy that eBay promotes because it's good for sellers. In fact, in this scenario, you have absolutely no way of knowing how much you would have needed to bid to buy the item. The bidder who got the item for $51 might well have entered a maximum bid of $100, and then you would have needed to spend $101 (twice your intended maximum) to get the item.
For those who still believe sniping works, I always invite them to consider what I call the "Bill Gates scenario": Suppose that Bill Gates decides to make people's lives miserable on eBay by buying every item in some coveted category.
So during a period of one week, he does a search and finds all the new auctions for, oh, I don't know, let's say Kardon lens caps. He gets in at the very beginning of each auction and enters a maximum bid of one million dollars for each cap.
Well, you can follow whatever sniping strategy you want, but during this week there is going to be no way you are going to be able to buy a Kardon lens cap on eBay... not unless you are willing to pay more than one million dollars for it, which would be nuts. Bill will get all of them, and probably in every case he will pay much, much less than his maximum bid. And none of the other bidders will ever know how much it would have taken for them to get a Kardon lens cap, because his maximum bids will never be revealed.
I realize that in spite of this seemingly obvious logic, there are a lot of people out there who believe with almost religious intensity that sniping CAN work, at least in some tortuously-reasoned hypothetical scenarios. All I'll say in response to that is that I don't get into religious arguments on RFF any more, so don't bother to post a reply. Just think about it instead, okay?
As you think, keep in mind these basic principles:
-- Whatever else happens, the item will be sold to the person who enters the highest bid before time expires.
-- In case of ties, the sale goes to the person whose bid was entered first. (Proxy bids are timed from the moment they were entered, even if they're automatically upped later.)
-- An auction's closing price tells you nothing about how high a bid it would have taken to top it, because you have no way of knowing the winning bidder's maximum price.
If you think I'm completely off-base on this, you're free to get on eBay and follow your own logic and we'll see who comes out ahead at the end of the day. In fact, I'm thinking of selling several items on eBay soon, so the smart thing probably would have been for me NOT to post this, and instead promote the fallacy that "sniping works." It DOES work -- but for the seller, by promoting "auction fever" and a mentality that the goal is to "beat" the other bidders, rather than simply to buy an item you want for a sensible market price.
I am focusing on BUY NOW items mainly due to the hassles of bidding. Quite often, there are great bargains for items that can be bought directly.
I bought the lens, so let me explain the way I bid on it.
I think jlw is right in what he says, if ebay bidding were always rational, but at least in my case I know I can't be counted on to adhere to a rational strategy. So, like jlw's rational bidder, I figure out what price I am willing to pay long before the auction is over. The difference is I put the bid in (by hand, not using sniping software) just before the auction ends.
That way I may win the item, or may not - but I am never drawn into bidding more than I think the item is worth (and I can afford), because if someone else has bid more, it's too late for me to enter a higher bid. I know if I enter it even one minute before the end, I may be confronted with a higher price, and I will inevitably succumb and bid more than I decided (in cold blood) that I would bid up to.
Having said that, I also have watched my own early bid on something like a filter (when I couldn't be there at auction's end) beaten by someone who "walked" their own bid up $20 by a dollar at a time. Again, not rational bidding, but I think irrational bidding is the rule on auction sites rather than the exception. I'm not an economist, but I think the study of online auctions is currently a hot topic of study (for instance, whether to set a reserve bid or not) - which it wouldn't be if bidding were always rational.
Fred B.
Congrats on the lens, Fred, and please post some pictures ...
Also, please consider posting some results in the flickr M-mount
forum, this is such a rare lens.
Thanks,
Roland.
Glad one of "us" got it! Do keep in touch with examples. Enjoy!
Congratulations, Fred. I emailed you via ebay! I hope that I can test this lens when I will be doing "A test of 60mm lenses" soon!
Raid
Raid, any time you need it, it practically has the stamps on it ... I just don't know what other 60's there are around?
Fred B.
Raid, any time you need it, it practically has the stamps on it ... I just don't know what other 60's there are around?
Fred B.
Fred,
I am joking with you; I don't think there exists any other 60mm lens in LTM. One day, and when you don't mind it, I would love to try it out. I hope that your two lenses made it back to you.
Raid
I've never seen a lens diagram of the Konica 60/1.2. Seeing how long the lens is, I wonder whether it's just a remake of their 57/1.2 SLR lens of the seventies optically...
The 57-58mm focus length was very common since the Zeiss Biotar 2/58 in early SLR history, because many 50mm's weren't long enough for mirror clearance in these days. The difference between a 57 or 58 and 60mm would be hard to evaluate.
regards, Frank
I am joking with you; I don't think there exists any other 60mm lens in LTM.I think you're right, Raid... There is however a 60mm macro in the Leica R system.
The original LTM f1.5 Zeiss Sonnar came in 58mm.
Roland.
Raid - the lenses made it back in perfect shape. I don't know how you keep track of all the lens caps and hoods.
In Visoflex mount there's the 65/3.5 Elmar, then the 73/1.9 LTM Hektor ... How about 58-75's?
Fred B.
Raid - the lenses made it back in perfect shape. I don't know how you keep track of all the lens caps and hoods.
In Visoflex mount there's the 65/3.5 Elmar, then the 73/1.9 LTM Hektor ... How about 58-75's?
Fred B.
Fred,
I am glad that the lenses made it abck well to you. As for the 58mm-75mm lenses, they are rare and it would be great to find donors for such lenses for a test sometimes during the early fall. With fewer lenses, I can do better testing. It was a very difficult task to keep track of 26 lenses in the 35mm-40mm focal range and it was even tougher to keep track who gets back which lens hood or lens shade or lens rear cover. I wrote down each accessory for each loaner lens with name of owner beside it. I also kept the original parcels.
Greetings,
Raid
The original LTM f1.5 Zeiss Sonnar came in 58mm.
Roland.
Roland,
Do you have such a lens? :angel:
Raid
I think you're right, Raid... There is however a 60mm macro in the Leica R system.
Doug,
Including the R system would start us on a totally different path!
Raid
Please please please post some photos with this lens! There are so very few photos taken with one of these out there!!!!
20020307123621konica60f1.jpg
Sorry about the previous post; this is the correct link:
http://www.photofans.cn/digest/4/18410052812.htm
vBulletin® v3.6.8, Copyright ©2000-2010, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.