Take a look, draw your conclusions and then compare notes with my impressions, below. This gallery may give you a feeling for what this lens is capable of. And, although perhaps not optically better than the Zuiko (but this is debatable), it gives me all I want. It is also noticeably lighter than the 90mm Zuiko (f/2 vs f/4 makes a big difference). The exact combination of focal length and minimum focus distance (it can be focused much closer with extension rings, but I hardly ever use them). For my tastes in “macro” photography it is simply perfect. The price was more than reasonable (about a fifth of what I got for the 90mm Zuiko) so I decided to try it.

… about a year ago I came across a set of a hardly used Hexanon 105mm f/4 lens with the corresponding helicoid, both in their original silver Konica boxes. After all, I am not really a macro photographer, I just like to get up close to a flower or a leaf or some fungi every now and then, so I don’t really need a macro lens. Undoubtedly a masterpiece, but again I tended not to use it all that much, largely because it is a very heavy lens but also because I was never quite sold on its out of focus rendition (“bokeh” always sounded cliquish to me), despite its marvelous sharpness, contrast and color. I also used to own what may be one of the crowning glories of macro lenses, the Zuiko 90mm f/2. I sold them both, mostly because I was not really using them all that much, despite their outstanding image quality. Whatever, both the 55mm Hexanon and the very sweet OM Zuiko 50mm f/3.5 which I also owned never quite worked for me.

Not really long enough, or focus distance not really close enough (unless you use extension tubes), or I am too lazy and impatient. I used to own a 55mm macro Hexanon and came to appreciate that it is a superb lens – too sharp if a lens can be that!!! But I always found 50-60mm macro lenses somewhat frustrating to work with, at least for my style of photography. You have to attach it either to a bellows (which I always found to be rather unwieldy) or to the the very rare Hexanon helicoid There is also the additional complication that the 105mm lens is a “bellows ” lens. The production run of the 105mm lens was quite a bit shorter than that of the 55mm lens, perhaps ten times as many of the shorter focal length lenses were made (information kindly provided by Jean-Jacques Granas). I would hazard that many more people have heard of the outstanding 55mm macro Hexanon than of its longer focal length cousin. It is certainly well known among the cognoscenti, but I am guessing that the same is not true of those who never got attacked by the Hexanon virus. I know that Konica fans will take exception to my labeling of this lens as “obscure”.

Konica hexanon ar 35mm f2