The Yashica 28-85 macro zoom on a full-frame mirrorless punches well above its weight
I was sent this lens by one of our youtube viewers a few years ago. I knew nothing about this lens when I received it, and little more when I took it out for its maiden voyage on Boxing Day, attached to my Sony A7C via an inexpensive adapter. It was only when I started editing my photos that I realised what a gem this zoom is. Enough, in fact, to compel me to write a blog post about it.
Yashica 28-85mm f/3,5-4,5 ML
This manual focus Contax/Yashica macro zoom lens is a bit of an enigma. There are a few websites detailing the basics, a few more with image samples, and a few copies for sale with an asking price of around £200, but I struggled to find much more about it. I think this was launched in 1987 and was heralded for its great Zeiss-like colour rendition. It has a strange macro setting, with two focus rings. Stranger still is that MFD for macro mode is well over a metre (1.7m I believe), so this will not get you close-up macro. It does, however, produce great general macro images if you can nail the focus. The lens is not parfocal.
A very foggy Boxing Day
As if it wasn’t obvious, my first run with this lens was on an extremely foggy Boxing Day, giving this set-up little chance of showing off the claimed Zeiss-like colours! I was more interested in how this physically performed as a manual focus zoom. Focusing was slow, as expected for a manual lens, but using Sony’s focus peaking to punch into the image before taking the shot helps. Pretty much every landscape image was taken at f/11 and all macro images taken at f/3.5-4.5.
Vignetting
One thing I wasn’t aware of while taking these photos was the heavy vignetting displayed in some of the images. I wish I’d taken more notice of this at the time because I can’t discern when the vignetting is most apparent. One thing to bear in mind is the cheap adapter I was using. The lens displayed some movement while attached to it, so I’m keen to pick up a K&F Concept alternative.
These were hardly ideal conditions for testing the features and foibles of this lens, but that wasn’t the point. I wanted to get a feel for the lens in general and, despite the lens being a little loose on the mount, I have to say it was good fun to use. And now that I have seen the results, I think I’ll get that adapter and continue to play around with it.
