Coming from Pentax gave me a great deal of interest in older lenses. The persistence of the Pentax K mount meant that I had access to a truly titanic range of older lenses and I whiled away a not-insubstantial amount of time looking into specific vintage glass and, on occasion, seizing the moment to pounce on eBay.
It was something I actually ended up missing when I came over to micro four thirds. It's a new mount - there is no old glass to be had. Adapting old lenses is possible, but there are bulky adapters and the lenses end up being massive, which somewhat defeats the object of the system. Nevertheless, I was desperate for an old-glass fix and a scour of the internet showed a bunch of people talking about the Konica Hexanon 40mm f1.8 - a vintage pancake lens with a short adapter. I kept an eye out on eBay after that, and am now the potentially proud (that remains to be seen) owner of a copy.
On the adapter, the Konica 40mm comes out somewhere in the middle sizewise - it is bigger than the small primes (25mm f1.8 and certainly the 20mm f1.7) and a little squatter than the Panasonic 14-42mm kit lens. It is much smaller than the 'pro m43 glass' set or the bigger zooms. By virtue of the fact that the adapter contains nothing but air it's relatively light for its size, weighing about 220g. The lens is fully manual and comes out as an equivalent 80mm focal length on m43.
I took the lens out for a spin over the course of a long walking weekend. It was about four million degrees out in the blazing sunshine, and as my partner and I dragged ourselves and our heavy training packs over the thirty miles we were walking I fair neglected to take many pictures at all. This is why I am a terrible photographer.
However, once we reached our destination (a house with a lovely garden) I could then take the lens out for a spin. As a consequence of the garden setting most of these test pictures are of flowers and bits of tree and other garden niceties. The 80mm equivalent focal length is a little awkward outside, but I've done what I can. I've also taken a couple of portraits as that, presumably, is what you'd actually want this lens for. I found in use that the lens is very prone to flare when shooting into the light, evne considering that I don't currently own a lens hood for it.
Along came a spider...a tiny, tiny spider. GM5 + Konica Hexanon 40mm f1.8 @ f4ish.
The bokeh seems to vary quite dramatically in quality...here it is quite 'swirly' whereas in the photo above it's fairly smooth. GM5 + Konica Hexanon 40mm f1.8. Flickr.
I was sat very close to Katie for this photo, so the focal length worked against me slightly. However, it shows that this lens is a perfectly capable portrait lens. GM5 + Konica Hexanon 40mm f1.8 @ f2.8ish. On flickr here.
Probably my favourite shot with the Hexanon thus far. The background hexagons just melt together even with the aperture not wide open, and the flower is pin-sharp. GM5 + Konica Hexanon 40mm f1.8 @ f2.8. On flickr here.
So, how does this lens stack up? I enjoy using the Hexanon - a manual lens changes how I approach taking photos. I become more deliberate, and take more time to frame the shot and focus on exactly what I wish rather than relying on the vagueries of autofocus. For shooting portraits of people candidly, though, it's much more difficult simply because of the time it takes to focus - autofocus keeps an edge here both in speed and number of 'keepers'. In terms of 40mm image quality, the Hexanon is soft wide open but becomes very sharp stopped down to f4, with a dramatic improvement from f2.8. At f4 it seems equally sharp, or sharper, than the Panasonic 42.5mm f1.7 at the same aperture which is pretty impressive.
The hexanon is very vulnerable to flare, particularly wide open - it loses oodles of contrast with wild veiling flare any time there is something bright nearby. I have read that you can mitigate this with a 55-28mm step down ring as an impromptu lens hood and I will give this a go and revisit this post if there is a substantal improvement.
Overall, I think it would be a fairly unusual situation where I would take the 40mm Hexanon out in preference to other lenses of a similar focal length (such as the excellent Panasonic 42.5mm f1.7, which is smaller, slimmer, lighter, faster, sharper wide open and has autofocus/image stabilisation). That being said, I'm not going to sell it on - it has character, and I like the change in shooting style that accompanies a fully manual lens. Unless I end up with the Voigtlander 42.5mm f0.95 (which I not-so-secretly would love even though it's big and heavy) then I'll keep this lens around for those times I just want something a little different.
Build quality: 4/5
Image quality: 3.5/5 (good stopped down, not my cup of tea wide open)
Portability: 3/5
Worth having with you? If you like soft-focus portraits or don't plan on f1.8, yes.
The hexanon is very vulnerable to flare, particularly wide open - it loses oodles of contrast with wild veiling flare any time there is something bright nearby. I have read that you can mitigate this with a 55-28mm step down ring as an impromptu lens hood and I will give this a go and revisit this post if there is a substantal improvement.
Overall, I think it would be a fairly unusual situation where I would take the 40mm Hexanon out in preference to other lenses of a similar focal length (such as the excellent Panasonic 42.5mm f1.7, which is smaller, slimmer, lighter, faster, sharper wide open and has autofocus/image stabilisation). That being said, I'm not going to sell it on - it has character, and I like the change in shooting style that accompanies a fully manual lens. Unless I end up with the Voigtlander 42.5mm f0.95 (which I not-so-secretly would love even though it's big and heavy) then I'll keep this lens around for those times I just want something a little different.
Build quality: 4/5
Image quality: 3.5/5 (good stopped down, not my cup of tea wide open)
Portability: 3/5
Worth having with you? If you like soft-focus portraits or don't plan on f1.8, yes.
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