Shipping Frustrations Dampening Initial Excitement

Konica Hexanon 40mm f1.8 lens... 40-something years
old and in excellent condition.

I've been searching for a low-priced, yet high quality 35mm or 40mm lens on the used market for about a year. (I'm disabled with no income other than my ridiculously small disability insurance pension through Social Security so all my photography gear is acquired used at bargain basement prices.) I have been in no hurry so I just patiently waited until I found the right lens for my needs.

Late last week, I found a beautiful 40mm lens that fits the bill and instantly ordered it. I also ordered a lens hood and the appropriate mount adapter so I could mount it on my best camera. Now, I was excited about getting this lens and playing with it!

The lens arrived quickly... delivered by Fedex only two days later. As I removed it from the box, I immediately noticed that this lens is in excellent condition for a 40-something year old lens. Now I was really excited to get to mount this on my camera and play... except I still had to wait for my mount adapter to arrive through the US Postal Service.

A day later, as I was still waiting for the mount adapter, I was kicking myself for not checking Amazon first and ordering through them. My Amazon packages always arrive within two days. At this point, I've been waiting about six days for this mount adapter and I am definitely wishing I had thought to order from Amazon right from the beginning. 

So, I have this beautiful lens sitting here in my possession... I've been actively searching for this lens for about a year... I finally found it and I now have it in my hand and yet I can't even mount it on my camera until this USPS package arrives... I'm getting frustrated and more and more angry with myself for not ordering from Amazon!

While I wait for my adapter to arrive, here are some interesting facts about the manufacturer of this lens...

This lens is a Konica Hexanon 40mm f1.8 prime lens which is a fast lens in a rather standard focal length. The characteristics of the glass in this lens are what make it a beautiful lens. The fact that this 40-something year old lens is in near-mint condition is a huge plus too.

Konica actually began in the photography business way back before even Kodak was in the photography business!  Konica started in 1873... not 1973... in 1873! That is a long time ago!

Konica has designed and manufactured a vast selection of lenses over the past century. I'm actually thinking about acquiring a few more of these Konica Hexanon lenses (but I'll be sure to order additional lens mount adapters through Amazon in the future).

Konica merged with Minolta in 2003 forming "Konica Minolta". This didn't last long though and by 2006 Konica Minolta was quitting the photography business due to poor sales. In 2006, Sony acquired Konica Minolta but the "Konica Minolta" name was dropped and Sony's name, including the newly acquired Konica Minolta, remained "Sony".  

The really interesting part of all of this is that my current photography gear is built around a Sony camera body so my current gear has some historical lineage pre-dating even Kodak... back to 1873 in Japan.

Another interesting tidbit of information is that my Sony camera body is capable of using almost any lens with any mount... I can use lenses with any of Canon's many mounts... Nikon lenses... Leica lenses... Pentax lenses including the old M42 mount lenses and even their medium format lenses... older Olympus lenses... medium format lenses by Hasselblad, Contax and Mamiya... old Fuji lenses... even all the Konica and Minolta lenses. Some photographers are even using this camera body as a digital back for old large format cameras. 

Needless to say, I'm really looking forward to using this Konica 40mm lens on my Sony body... It should be a winning combination!

If only my snail mail package would arrive...


Post Edit - 5 November 2015:  I learned tonight that this lens mount adapter will be delayed even longer so I resorted to ordering a new adapter through Amazon... since I now ordered through Amazon, I know I will have this new adapter by Saturday. I should have ordered from them in the first place!