I've posted this on /p/ and photographyonthe.net and figured it was worth posting here.
I've had one of these laying around that I meant to fix for a while. These are the little-known but much-respected kit lenses, the EOS 28-70 f3.5-4.5 that came on the EOS 650. They're about 100-ish dollars on flea-bay and broken copies for MUCH less. Once in a blue moon they pop up on here in EOS 650 kits with Mk.I 50mm's and 70-210 f4's. You will want a broken copy with a front element assembly separation.
The front half of the lens, the focusing part, had separated in a drop apparently and hearing that the MTF charts were only bested by the 28-70 f2.8L I figured I'd keep it and fix it up.
So it sat for a while, a LONG while, and tonight I pulled it out to dust it off and maybe order the part to fix it, when I mounted it on my camera to see if the aperture still worked and everything I discovered that the damn thing makes for an excellent macro close-up lens.
If memory serves me correct, people have been doing this with 35-80 kit lenses. But I never heard of it with a 28-70 kit from a 1988 EOS 650.
Samples below @ 28 and 50mm. From what I've shot so far I am very impressed with the level of detail and the background blur. Stopping down adds a significant amount of DoF, especially f11 and above. Also shots of what the whole thing looks like bolted up to my EOS 5d
28mm
50mm
I've had one of these laying around that I meant to fix for a while. These are the little-known but much-respected kit lenses, the EOS 28-70 f3.5-4.5 that came on the EOS 650. They're about 100-ish dollars on flea-bay and broken copies for MUCH less. Once in a blue moon they pop up on here in EOS 650 kits with Mk.I 50mm's and 70-210 f4's. You will want a broken copy with a front element assembly separation.
The front half of the lens, the focusing part, had separated in a drop apparently and hearing that the MTF charts were only bested by the 28-70 f2.8L I figured I'd keep it and fix it up.
So it sat for a while, a LONG while, and tonight I pulled it out to dust it off and maybe order the part to fix it, when I mounted it on my camera to see if the aperture still worked and everything I discovered that the damn thing makes for an excellent macro close-up lens.
If memory serves me correct, people have been doing this with 35-80 kit lenses. But I never heard of it with a 28-70 kit from a 1988 EOS 650.
Samples below @ 28 and 50mm. From what I've shot so far I am very impressed with the level of detail and the background blur. Stopping down adds a significant amount of DoF, especially f11 and above. Also shots of what the whole thing looks like bolted up to my EOS 5d
28mm
50mm