Hanimex 35-70 mm f2.5

Martin Rickards · Jan 9, 2018

I've just received a Minolta X500 that came with the Hanimex zoom attached. Hanimex has a bit of a reputation for being cheap and cheerful and I was wondering if anyone had any experience using it.

Dali · Jan 9, 2018

F/2.5, really?

Martin Rickards · Jan 9, 2018

Well, that's what it says on the front of the lens, 35-70mm f2.5-3.5. It looks a lot like it was a rebranded Soligor which may have been some other company's manufacture. It also has "macro" down to 1:2.7 marked on the barrel. I'm guessing it won't give pin sharp images wide open.

Paul Howell · Jan 9, 2018

Soligar didn't make lens, like Vivitair sold rebanded lens or late model CD or computer designed lens had Soligar had designed for them then built by another. Hanimex also sold rebranded lens. I don't recall seeing a 2.5 to 3.5 short zoom, most were 3.5 or 4.0 or 3.4 to 4.5, although were a few pro level at 2.8, might be better than you might think depending on who make it.

AgX · Jan 9, 2018

Sigma made a 2.8-4 lens (1982).
Some Sigma lenses got rebranded.

BMbikerider · Jan 9, 2018

Can I ask, has the lens got a single green line close to the front of the lens barrel running right around the circumference?

Martin Rickards · Jan 10, 2018

BMbikerider said:
Can I ask, has the lens got a single green line close to the front of the lens barrel running right around the circumference?

There is no green line. The focusing ring almost reaches the end of the barrel.

Martin Rickards · Jan 10, 2018

I've just come across this German thread on the Soligor branded version: http://www.digicamclub.de/showthread.php?t=13343 The only cosmetic difference appears to be that the focussing ring on the Hanimex extends to almost the end of the lens barrel.
PS There's no lens hood either, which was apparently rather ineffective anyway on the Soligor version. The lens' manufacturer was supposedly Sun. Surprisingly it is rated rather well as far as I can see.

BMbikerider · Jan 10, 2018

A translation of the link is below in bold for those who do not speak or read German. Something (a little) is lost when using Google Translate but you should all get the gist of it. The soligor/Hanimex Vivitar lens names were almost all made in the same factory. As there were several factories involved it is almost impossible to say which one. Kiron/Cosina/and possibly Sigma were involved somewhere along the line. Why I asked about the green line around the lens was that Hanimex marketed a range of quite decent lenses around about 1978-82 which were all wider than normal aperture with the green ring and they did come from Kiron. (I can say this because the name of the factory was inside the box and on the instruction sheet).

Since we are just at Soligor lenses, I want to introduce another zoom lens, which accompanied me for a long time.
Here are the facts:

Manufacturer: Soligor
Rotary zoom with Macrofunction
Weight: 405 grams
Filter: 58 mm
Length: smallest 89 mm, largest 115 mm
largest diameter (on the front grip rubber): 65 mm
Aperture: 2.5-22 in whole steps
Minimum focusing distance: 0.7 m
solid metalwork, painted, pleasant handling
built-in lens hood
Lenses / Groups: unknown, did not have to disassemble yet
8 lamellae in stop sign form
Shutter switch Auto / Manual

The lens is consistently the brightest zoom in this focal length range for M42 (but was also produced for Y / C, OM and others) and also a true macro.
In the (BAS) tests the Soligor always did very good to excellent, sometime in the middle of the nineties I bought it in an excellent condition, I think for twenty marks. It would have to be one of the last lenses made by Soligor.
The lens was later also sold under the labels Unitor, Tefnon and Magnum Optics (Access).

The reviews did not disappoint. The lens is already sharp at open aperture, the best performance is achieved at 5.6. At 35mm, the quality is a bit soft, you can see that the designers have already set the focus of the lens calculation here on macro. But from a tiny turn that looks neat again in normal shots.

Since I had hardly any problems on film with field curvature, distortion and aberration, I did not disappoint the results at the EOS.
The macro function is, as usual at that time, achieved with a rotary ring (infinitely variable), which removes the entire lens design like a bellows device from the camera, good for the optical quality.
The magnification of the Soligor is from 1: 8 to 1: 2,7 as a maximum. The aperture is not changed mechanically. From 2.5 to 3.5, only the falling light intensity decreases.

The built-in sun visor can be pushed out only about 1cm, which is sufficient for most conditions, but in light from the front you should then use another geli, the lens is a little flare susceptible.
The lens brings a bit cooler colors, but that never bothered me.

The only small disadvantage is actually the focus setting.
With not even a quarter turn you are from 0.7m to infinity. So you need either a good eye and a lot of experience or as a spectacle wearer I need a search light.
Or just liveview. But even without it actually goes, if one has gotten used to it (all photos shown here are focused only with the eye, my viewfinder for the EOS can be expected).
And I can not expect any photos in a test, my scanner is eleven years old .. (maybe I should buy a new one)

Conclusion:

A very good all round lens with very good macro properties, very compact and relatively light for a metal construction.
If you can take only one (for whatever reason) and still be prepared for as many eventualities Soligor is a very good choice.

AgX · Jan 10, 2018

From the quoted thread:
"Manufacturer: Soligor"

Soligor was not a manufacturer, but just a trading brand.

Martin Rickards · Jan 10, 2018

There's some Kodak Colorplus in the Minolta and I'm going to run off 24 exposures to see how good/bad the results are and compare them to those taken on the Rokkor 35-80 on my Dynax for comparison. With the weather the way it is, that f2.5 diaphragm may be useful Btw, that German site goes on to say that it's a 10 element in 9 group lens and another site reported that the original manufacturer was Sun Optical. There's very little about it on the net; much less for my Hanimex version.

BMbikerider · Jan 10, 2018

A lot of the full facts relating to the lens will have been lost in time. If it works well, who cares about where it was made - in Japan, Korea or an igloo in Greenland. Even the Vivitar Series 1 70/210 had 5 manufacturers over the time it was being sold new. There is a site where it tells you that the manufacturer can be discovered via the serial number. I have tried to find it again but cannot. When I checked after buying one to use on my Minolta body the serial number indicated that it was a Kiron (Kino Industries) item (It is a damn good lens!).

It is significant that they are selling Agfa Precisa slide film but on the picture of the cassette it also shows the word Sensia!

BMbikerider · Jan 10, 2018

Martin Rickards said:
There's some Kodak Colorplus in the Minolta and I'm going to run off 24 exposures to see how good/bad the results are and compare them to those taken on the Rokkor 35-80 on my Dynax for comparison. With the weather the way it is, that f2.5 diaphragm may be useful Btw, that German site goes on to say that it's a 10 element in 9 group lens and another site reported that the original manufacturer was Sun Optical. There's very little about it on the net; much less for my Hanimex version.

That may be completely accurate as I said before there were a number of different makers with their individual fingers in the metaphorical pie and Sun Optical could very well be one of them!

Paul Howell · Jan 10, 2018

Sun made a few very good lens, as well as some not so good lens. Just need to shoot it to see how good it really is. I recall that Sun made a preset 400mm and 500 that were rebranded under many different names.

Martin Rickards · Jan 10, 2018

Paul Howell said:
Sun made a few very good lens, as well as some not so good lens. Just need to shoot it to see how good it really is. I recall that Sun made a preset 400mm and 500 that were rebranded under many different names.

Well, I tried, but not being familiar with the new camera, the film loaded badly and was unexposed after 28 "exposures". I had to reload properly and the light was awful, Let's hope for better luck tomorrow.

cooltouch · Jan 12, 2018

I've owned a couple of Hanimex zooms and my experience with them was that they were good quality optics. Hopefully yours will be the same. I've looked and I can't find any info on who made Hanimex lenses. Once I recall it being mentioned that Hoya made Hanimex lenses, but I can't substantiate that.

AgX · Jan 13, 2018

Hanimex with their very wide range of products (extending beyond photography) used several sources and had own production too. I assume concerning their lenses one has to trace down each lens seperately.

Martin Rickards · Jan 13, 2018

When I lived in England, the Hanimex brand seemed linked to the Jessops photographic group that generally sold "economical" lines. But that was thirty years ago and my memory could be mistaken. Anyway, I should have the negatives back on Monday, so I'll have a better idea of what the lens is capable of.
PS The lens, or a dead ringer of it, was also sold under the Access brand and https://www.pentaxforums.com/userreviews/access-zoom-lens-35mm-70mm-f2-5.html says it was made by Kobori. The Access version looks even more like my Hanimex, having the wider focusing ring.http://www.imagingpixel.com/2017/10/access-p-mc-35-70mm-12535-macro-zoom.html has some d photos obtained from it and they seem to be OK.
I then looked up Kobori and found they were licensed to make Dynax lenses and also made some Nikons

dynachrome · Jan 14, 2018

I have this lens with the Soligor name and with at least one other name and in various mounts. It's a very decent performer.

Mick Fagan · Jan 14, 2018

Just as a matter of interest, Hanimex originally came from Australia eventually purchasing, among other entities, Vivitar, which was why Vivitar lenses suddenly became available cheaply in Australia in the late 80's, then abruptly stopped being available cheaply when the company was sold to an overseas company, Gestetner who were then acquired by Ricoh who were then acquired by Fuji. Earlier, the division of Hanimex that sold Fuji products in Australia was called Fujimex. Very interesting memories for me.

http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Hanimex

Mick.

Paul Howell · Jan 15, 2018

Found a limited review of what may be the same lens on the Pentax Forum, very small number of reviewers so might be better or worse.

Access / Soligor 35mm-70mm F2.5-3.5
Sharpness
6.0
Aberrations
6.0
Bokeh
8.5
Handling
7.5
Value
6.5
Reviews Views Date of last review
2 9,591 Sun March 1, 2015

Recommended By Average Price Average User Rating
50% of reviewers $42.50 6.50

Read more at: https://www.pentaxforums.com/userreviews/access-zoom-lens-35mm-70mm-f2-5.html#ixzz54GkqlAhB

blockend · Jan 16, 2018

Short zooms of modest aperture from independent manufacturers are much the same, in my experience. Reasonable sharpness at the wide end, softening towards telephoto. A fair amount of chroma but not bad in black and white. I think of them as hobbyist's lenses, if your hobby isn't photography! Joking apart, they're good for subjects where framing tight is more important than anything else, trainspotting for example.

It will be interesting to see if that's how this Hanimex turns out.

Martin Rickards · Jan 16, 2018

The test roll turned out quite well. To me photography is just a hobby and the lens for me turned out reasonable negatives at all focal lengths and also using the macro. I for one would be hard pressed to distinguish the pictures from those obtained with the Minolta 35-80mm AF zoom on my Dynax, That was with most photos taken at the larger diahragms because of the light

Benty · May 22, 2020

BMbikerider said:
Can I ask, has the lens got a single green line close to the front of the lens barrel running right around the circumference?

Hi.
What does the green line around the lens mean?
Manufacturer, year, quality... ?

I can buy cheap:
- Hanimex MC 35-70mm f/2.8-3.8 Macro (not 2.5-3.5, but 2.8-3.8 !)
and
- Hanimex MC 28-80mm f/3.5 (constant) Macro
Both with the green line.

Thank's.
Ben
(Sorry fos my poor english. I'm only fluency in french and spanish)

Paul Howell · May 22, 2020

Not sure what the green line means, someone may recall, the Hamimex line was sold in Australia and New Zealand, there cameras and lens were rebranded, or branded over such as Topcon. My best guess is that the 35mm to 70 is a Chinon with slightly different aperture rating. If it is a Chinon is likely a good performer. This rating is from the Pentax review site 3rd party lens. MC is multi coating. Chinon overall made pretty good glass. The 28 to 80 might be a later lens, 35 to 70 were common kit zooms later replaced my 28 to 80, have no idea who made it, in either case all you do is pick and test.
Chinon 35-70 2.7-3.5 MC
Sharpness
8.5
Aberrations
6.5
Bokeh
8.5
Handling
9.5
Value
10.0
Reviews Views Date of last review
2 15,171 Fri February 8, 2019

Recommended By Average Price Average User Rating
100% of reviewers $45.00 9.00

Read more at: https://www.pentaxforums.com/userreviews/chinon-35-70-2-7-3-5-mc.html#ixzz6NCR7mMtl

Hanimex 35-70 mm f2.5

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