Konica Hexanon AR 28mm f/3.5

This along with the 50mm f/1.7 and 135mm f/3.2 Hexanons all in very good condition were obtained for around $80 USD total and have become my goto lenses for B&W street photography due to their older coatings and their smoother tonal roll-off.

For comparison, I also have the Konica UC Hexanon AR 28mm f/1.8 that costs around 20 times as much and whilst it is a little sharper at middle apertures, has better coatings and close focus to .18 meters, I still prefer the 3.5 version for black and white and at times for colour too as long as the lighting is not too difficult.

In my opinion this 7/5 element lens is highly underrated and whilst it won’t win any awards for surgical sharpness (all the rage these days) it’s 3D DOF rendering (an attribute of all the older Hexanon’s) more than compensates for it.

In fact I sometimes think that if I told people that I actually captured these images on an Elmarit-R 28mm V.2 that many would ooh and ahh them selves into a frothy lather about the creamy Leica tones and why it’s worth $5k. But alas it’s just a $50 Hexanon.

However, until I can afford the holy grail of 28mm’s—2 years, 6 months and 18 days (not that I’m counting) this $50 beauty will have to suffice. I also have the 50mm f/1.4 and am looking to add both 57mm’s to my growing list of Hexanon’s—now numbering 12 lenses.