Series 1 lenses are a bit like Pokemon. Once you try one, you want to collect them all. Is the Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm f/3.5 worth hunting?

I’ve become a big fan of the Series 1 lenses by Vivitar. This is only my second one, but it really exemplifies what makes them awesome. It’s been one of my favorite vintage lenses, yet. If you’re a fan of good optics with a vintage flair, read on to find out more.

The good

• Good sharpness across the board
• Tons of character
• Excellent bokeh
• Great build quality
• Useful macro mode
• Constant f/3.5 aperture through the zoom range

The less good

• Heavy, a side effect of its great metal build
• Some zoom creep
• Filter threads rotate with focusing

Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm f/3.5 — TL;DR

The Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm f/3.5 is an excellent zoom lens. It was built in an era when zooms weren’t the best, especially third party zooms. This lens breaks that mold. It’s sharp, has great bokeh, and is super versatile with its unique macro mode. The 70-210mm zoom range has become a standard for a reason, it can cover many situations with aplomb. I’ve used it both adapted to digital and on film.

It’s not entirely without flaws, however. If the lens is stowed zoomed in to 210mm up against the lens mount, it can creep its way down towards 70mm as you walk around with it. Of course, it isn’t as sharp in all areas as a modern 70-200mm can be. The filter threads also rotate when focusing. It’s not a big deal usually, but with a filter like a CPL or VND on, it can be annoying. It is also a pretty beefy lens, it isn’t light by any means.

However, the reason it’s so heavy is related to its excellent build quality. It is a largely metal construction. The push-pull zoom and focus ring has a nice, firm feel. The tolerances on the lens are tight and precise. The heft of the lens gives it feeling of quality. The makers of the Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm certainly knew what they were doing.

Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm f/3.5 — Does it photo?

Oh boy, does the Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm ever photo! I’ve used this lens on a couple of my Minolta film bodies, took a few photos with a borrowed Sony A7rIV, and had it out on my Nikon ZF several times. This lens is a faithful companion across my camera bodies. It delivers in a unique way that I have really been taken with.

Bokeh

I have a feeling that if you’re looking at the Vivitar 70-210mm f/3.5 Series 1 lens, you’re probably interested in how it performs in terms of bokeh. I get it. Luckily, it’s an excellent bokeh machine and I haven’t been able to resist putting it to work. As a result, I’ve included entirely too many bokeh photos in this review’s sample gallery. Let’s take a look and discuss the bokeh some more below.

I have found that this lens can produce a nice variety of bokeh. When wide open at f/3.5, it produces a nice, soft, and light swirly look to the out of focus elements in a photo. Stopping it down just a hair to f/4-5.6 pops the contrast back up nicely and makes for a lovely traditional looking bokeh. Its backgrounds are nice and smooth, never busy, and very pleasing. I also have to say that I’m quite happy with the amount of character in these images.

I wouldn’t hesitate to use the Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm f/3.5 for portraits, nature, or pure bokehlicious photos. Hopefully these sample photos do a good enough job of giving you some idea of the different types of image renditions you can get. This also brings us nicely along to the next section in the review.

Close-up performance

Featuring one of the most unique macro modes that I’ve come across on a vintage lens, the version 1 Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm is capable of some pretty nice close up work. Putting it into macro mode requires rotating the focus ring to macro, then rotating the lens barrel around with the macro “collar” near the aperture ring. When doing this, the zoom becomes fixed at 70mm, and pushing and pulling the zoom ring now changes the reproduction ratio.

This is one of the better macro modes in a zoom lens that I have used. Not only is it quite usable and sharp up close, but it also gives a best reproduction ratio of 1:2.2. This means that you can really get in there and get some details! However, there are a few caveats. This lens is definitely not competing with a true macro lens. It can’t keep up in pure resolution and image quality. Nor can its 1:2.2 reproduction match a 1:1 macro.

It can vignette a bit in macro mode, and it also loses some corner sharpness. Although, it is quite sharp still in the middle. This really makes the Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm work well as a lens that can get you in close, but still provide solid character. It also lends itself well to the versatile nature of the 70-210mm focal range.

Optical Imperfections – Flare, color fringing, etc.

This lens really surprised me in this category. My Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm f/3.5 is the first version and its serial number places it as being made in 1976. Normally, zooms from this era were bad about flaring, longitudinal chromatic aberrations, and color fringing. However, this thing has no problem handling these difficult situations.

Shooting towards the sun was totally fine from most angles. Even when I was able to induce flare, the contrast held up better than expected. If you take a peek at the images above and in the close up section, you’ll see a surprising lack of color fringing. I would have expected longitudinal chromatic aberration to show up in the pen photos in the form of color fringing in the greens behind the pen and magenta in front of it. Also note that there is no fringing around the shiny metal clip of the pen.

Sharpness and contrast

On the whole, there isn’t a lot to say in regard to sharpness and contrast. The Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm had good center sharpness from wide open until f/16 when diffraction starts to soften the image. The corners are a bit softer at f/3.5 but sharpen up with stopping down to where my copy has great sharpness at f/8 and f/11. It can’t quite resolve the full resolution of the borrowed Sony A7rIV’s 61 megapixel sensor, but it has no trouble on film and the Nikon Zf.

Also, contrast and color are totally fine with the Vivitar. The contrast in particular impressed me. This lens has an almost modern looking rendering in terms of having nice contrast. However, it doesn’t lose that vintage micro-contrast “3d pop” factor that we all love.

I also took the Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm f/3.5 out one evening on a walk with the Nikon Zf. I ended up unintentionally birding with the lens and was quite surprised with how well it held up. The above images are heavily cropped and lightly edited from RAW in RawTherapee. The Eastern Bluebird cleaning its wing and the Eastern Kingbird in the pine tree are both cropped close to, or more than, 100%. I didn’t expect this kind of performance from the old lens.

Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm — Touch test

The Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm is a really nice lens to use. It’s zoom and focus ring has a nice damping. This makes zooming and focusing feel controlled and smooth. The aperture ring has decent clicks for each stop. Getting it into macro mode is a solid, positive feeling as well.

When it comes to feel, this lens is also fairly nice. It’s got a solid heft to it. However, it’s almost so solid that I’ve seen many people complain that it’s heavy. That said, the barrel feels tough. Its rubberized focus/zoom ring has held up quite well over the years. Overall, it feels quite nice to operate.

Build quality

When it comes to build, the Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm is built like a tank. The tolerances on this old lens are tight. My copy has no wiggles or wobbles. Everything glides smoothly where it should, clicks solidly, and does what it should do. Zoom creep can still happen, but it’s slower than I expected it to be. Overall, it’s a tough lens that’s built to work for a long time.

Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm — Two thumbs up

Vintage zooms are a category of lens that struggles with a bad reputation. Particularly when it came to third party lenses. This Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm was one of the first lenses to start shifting that reputation. It has solid optics, a constant f/3.5 aperture, and a great build quality.

This lens is an easy one to recommend for me. I love the character of the images I’ve made with it so far. It has awesome bokeh, great image rendering, it’s sharp, and the macro mode is actually useful, adding to its versatility. If this lens is on your radar and you find an affordable copy, go for it!

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