Infrared with Soligor Vintage Budget Prime Lenses
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In this video, I’ll take a look at shooting infrared photography with two budget vintage prime lenses, the Soligor Wide-Auto 35mm f/2.8 and the Soligor Tele-Auto 135mm f/2.8. I’ve found that vintage lenses rarely have hot spots in infrared, work great with mirrorless cameras, and are affordable. Soligor is a third-party budget lens brand. They can be found for a wide variety of mounts and under a number of different brand names. Thanks to the rock bottom prices, Soligor lenses are a bargain hunters dream.
Lenses
Video
Pros
- Great build quality, all metal construction
- Very long focus throw; the 135mm rotates over 180 degrees and the 35mm rotates almost a full 360 degrees
- Filter threads are 52mm and 55mm
- 135mm has a built-in sliding lens hood
- Great color rendition
- Very affordable, lens can be found for 20 USD each, the adapter cost under 15 USD
- No infrared hot spots
Cons
- Image quality is good, but not great compared to modern primes.
- The aperture rings clicks in half-stop increments above f/5.6, but only full stop increment below f/5.6.
- The 135mm has a 6-foot minimum focus distance, it’s not a macro lens.
These lenses are an incredible value and work really well in infrared.
Related
- Vintage Lenses for Infrared Photography
- Infrared with vintage Canon FD 24mm f/2.8
- Infrared with vintage Nikon 24mm f/2.8
- Minolta Rokkor-X 45mm f/2 Hot Spot Free Vintage Lens
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