Re: Russian 28mm Orion LTM- black or silver?

[pgs@thillana.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick Sobalvarro)]

   From: "Jon Mitchell <jmitch@panama.phoenix.net>" <jmitch@panama.phoenix.net>
   Date: Sun, 8 Jun 1997 03:17:57 +0000

   Hello LUGers,

   Does anyone know how much an Orion 28mm LTM costs? Are they screw 
   mount? Do they make any other cost efficient wide-angles? I read 
   about a Russian 20mm f5.6 on the internet, has anyone brought one? 

Several people on the LUG have these 20/5.6 Russars, including me.
I'm happy with mine, although it's my second -- my first had some
manufacturing defects and I returned it for an exchange.  Contrast and
flare control are quite good, and geometrically it seems free of
distortion.  It does vignette noticaeably at the corners, but not more
than about 3/4 stop at the extremes.  It seems a bit soft, although I
don't know if this is due to my tendency to use fast color negative
film with it -- I'm more used to shooting slow film, but the Russar
has no RF coupling, and is slow and painful to switch aperture
settings on, so I just leave it stopped down to around f/11 or f/16
when shooting, and this requires fast film.

I have scanned a number of shots I took with it, using a Sprintscan 35
Plus, whose 2700 dpi scanning resolution is high enough to resolve
pretty much all the detail on the fast films I've been using with this
lens.  I don't have a non-work-related web site (and photography is
not my work), so I haven't put any up on the Web, but I may
eventually, especially if I make a more concerted effort to evaluate
the quality of the lens.

- -Patrick