Alpa Kern lens on Olympus PM-1

[Stephen]

A couple of shots with the 50mm Kerm Macro Switar 50mm f1.8 lens, taken at Gravesend, very windy despite the sun, so more next week.


Three Daws riverside Pub, Gravesend.


River Thames Gravesend, low tide.


Princess Pocahontas Memorial, St Georges Church Gravesend.

[Stephen]

And another shot, same lens, on PM-1



River dredger, running light, with Thames River Pilot boat leaving to return to station at Gravesend Pier.

[Stephen]

And a Barge Match that finishes near Gravesend to come soon. A chance to try out vintage telephotos on the PM-1 micro 4/3 Olympus.

[Deleted]

Looks to me like the lens works just fine on a digital camera.

[truls]

I like the pictures, also the colors. Never heard about the lens, but it must be some kind of lots of lines resolution pr mm.?

[Stephen]

The Alpa Swiss camera used Swiss made Kern lenses, the standard lens is the Macro Switar F1.8 50mm, and was always considered by experts and users, to be the best standard lens ever produced. It is extremely sharp on full frame, obviously loosing definition on 4/3 digital as much as any lens.

The contrast and colour definition was excellent, these days if still in good clean condition, they are still contrasty. It was corrected for flat field at the close focusing end of the scale, and comes in to 1:2.

Kern are Swiss precision instrument makers, and made lens from the 1890's onwards, they are in business but no longer make general purpose lenses. They specialised in cine lenses for a long time as well.

Alpa used many makes on the cameras, but the Kern where the top marque. The main factor against Kern was the price, they were many times more than rivals like Nikon, and more than Leica.

Stephen.

[Stephen]

Couple more from Kern Lens, Town Sun Pier, Gravesend, Kent, on the River Thames.

[truls]

The pics are VERY sharp. According to prices on the bay one could purchase a quality medium format camera instead of the Alpa lens
The rendering looks like Nikon 50mm non ai lenses, which is no comparison in any way...

[olroy2044]

Wow, that lens really gives nice results! The photographer did right well too!

[Stephen]

The frontage of The Three Daws, Gravesend, Kent, it dates from 1400, first a public house in Queen Elizabeth 1st's reign, infamous for local brandy smuggling, and the Navy Press Gang in later times, it had escape tunnels to other Public houses and St Georges Church. Mentioned by Dickens, overlooks the River Thames.
Stephen.