Konica Hexanon 40mm Lens

Konica Hexanon 40mm, f1.8 lens

As I wrote in a blog entry a few days ago, I found a beautiful old lens for sale after searching for almost a year. I quickly ordered this old but 'like-new' lens as well as a lens hood and a lens mount adapter to allow this lens to work with my particular camera. In total, this beautiful old lens was dirt cheap.

I attempted to head outdoors yesterday morning to get some shots but between some very lousy health and very windy conditions, I captured nothing but blurred photos because of shakey hands and everything blowing violently in the wind. This morning, however, was a completely different story...

There was no wind this morning... it was cold and crisp (still below freezing when I headed outdoors) with no wind whatsoever... my health had stabilized within the past 24 hours so my hands had steadied up to a normal level (which comes in handy when shooting a manual focus lens)... This was the time to put this new lens to the test.

Overall, I'm really liking this lens. It has a few quirks but, as long as I understand the limitations of this lens, the quirks can be used to an advantage as part of the character of the lens.

This old lens develops some serious flare wide open at f1.8 but that comes under control quickly at f2.8. That being said, the flare can be viewed as a nice 'feature' of this old film-era lens. Sharpness also increases dramatically when the flare is under control. Of course, shooting directly toward the sun as I did in a few of these photos created some difficult and harsh conditions. Even so, I'm very happy with the results. I tested it under rather harsh conditions and I have come away from it still loving the lens... that is a good sign!

I'm sure this little gem of a lens will come in handy for those situations when I need a standard field of view on the slightly wider end. With a 40mm field of view, this gives me a wider view than my stunningly sharp Zeiss 55mm f1.8 lens. A lens at this 40mm focal length would be good as a 'walk-around' lens or for shots in tighter quarters such as indoors.

As you can see in these sample photos here, this lens can still produce some beautiful imagery when used to its strengths... and even in some harsh conditions...

A snapshot during morning coffee.

Shot toward the sun... hence a bit of reflected flare in the lower left part of frame.

In today's digital world, photographers demand "perfect" lenses... I actually like the film-like
flaws of this lens... it has character... the flare here is a beautiful characteristic of this lens.

Testing a lens that has a rather wide view (like this lens) on a single blade of grass is
almost a ridiculous test. Even so, this lens performed quite well!

There is a lot of nice detail in this clump of leaves... the lens rendered this scene
very well. This sentiment also applies to the clump of leaves in the next photo...