Old 350mm lens - VINSON INA - anyone heard of it?

[Omaroo]

Hey all.. anyone heard of these lenses before? They're made in Japan and look as though they might have been made in the 70's or thereabouts. Being f/5.5 it isn't particularly bright - but for the money it may have been comparable to Tamrons of the period. Its focal length is 350mm. I've tried to Google it, but don't come back with much. I'd be interested to hear what "Vinson INA" was as a company.

Jenny found this particular lens at a trash & treasure market on the weekend. She paid $25 for it and when she brought it home with her I asked her why she bought junk home. LOL!

Anyway - after a clean up and fitment of a Nikon T-Ring I gave it a shot or six and was reasonably impressed. It caters to no automatic features of course, but in manual mode it has a nice feature in that the aperture ring is split in two - one controls the set aperture and the other allows aperture preview by operating the iris from f/5.5 all the way down to the set aperture. Neat!

I gave it a go on a couple of distance objects with the trusty D40. I might use it a bit more often :) Not bad for $25

Here's a couple of the lens itself, and one of a house about 250m away.

[SpaceJunk]

good score Omaroo, $25 for a 350mm and it works a treat............... how could you go wrong? AK will appreciate that purchase I reckon ;)

[lanthar]

Im new in these thread and hoping that I will learn from the experiences and advice from other members. I use Nikon D90 and recently bought a Pentax k20 with kit lens and intending to be able to use my old lenses.

My lens are Pentax M SMC 50mm 1:1.4 and SMC M 50mm 1:4 macro, Auto Chinon 55 1.4 , zuiko MC 50 1.8, Cosina 50mm 1:2, Helios 44m 2/58, Takumar 28 2.8, Zykkor 28 2.8, Tamron adaptal 80-210 3.8-4 103A BBAR MC, Pentax SM FA 80-320 AF 4.5-5.6, TAIR 3 photosniper 300mm 4.5, INA 350mm 5.5, Super Marexar 100-200 f5.6 and Kimuron 500mm f8. I have no informations regarding the origin or review of the last three lenses. Any help? Dont know which one to keep and one to get rid off.

I had Pentax ME super, Canon AE1, TOPCON RE, Zenit EM Olympic edition and voighlander VITO CL during the film era and now enrolled in Digital Photograpy course to learn more about digital photography.

I hope I will be able to contribute to this thread once I have the knowledge and time to use my new and old gears.

[Analog6]

Well it seems to take a nice shot, the house pic looks good - bargain, I'd say.

I found some items after a Google search:
http://forum.mflenses.com/vinson-ina-135mm-f2-8-search-t11669.html
And there is one for sale on eBay (https://cars2.ebay.com.au/VINSON-INA-350mm-CAMERA-LENS-with-CASE-1-5-5_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQitemZ320585158935) - it's up to $18.50 - obviously no one's heard of them so no bids.