Thanks for the education. I have a "miJ" that I
purchased new in 1987 with my OM-2s. I always loved
the lens but was unaware of it's pedigree. The OM2s
was recently sold to fund my E-300 purchase, but the
"miJ" remains one of the few OM items left in my
collection.
Not that this says much, but it's certainly the best
lens i've ever shot with.
-Steve
--- Moose <olymoose@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> USHER99@xxxxxxx wrote:
>
> >Any easy way to tell which variant of lens you
> have? Mine has "112101" on the
> >front and "made in Japan" on the back ring where
> the depth of field preview
> >button is located. I was hoping it is the "made in
> the Japan" version, but
> >judging by the performance in low light, I don't
> think so. Any help appreciated.
> >Thanks.
> >
> Yours is a VERY early one, as serial numbers seem to
> have started at 100
> 000. As you have already discovered, they are not
> very sharp above maybe
> f5.6. There was a later SC version with better
> performance. Then there
> were then many MC ones, marked "MC", that are
> optically quite good.
> Unfortunately, a great many of them suffer from a
> problem with breakdown
> of the helicoid grease, with the lighter, oily
> component migrating to
> the aperture mechanism, resulting in slowing, and
> sometimes stopping, of
> aperture return. Not all that hard to clean up, but
> can come back unless
> a full CLA is done to get all the old grease out and
> replace it.
>
> All of the above have the serial number on the front
> ring and say "LENS
> MADE IN JAPAN" on the mount. The next, final and
> best design is the so
> called "miJ". With these, the serial number moved to
> the mount and the
> words "made in Japan" moved to the front ring. Note
> that the preceeding
> capitalizations are as they actually appear on the
> lenses. I have had
> one miJ with a sticky aperture, but they seem to
> mostly be free of the
> affliction.
>
> The miJs are really excellent lenses, about as good
> at f1.8 as the
> earliest f1.8s at f4 and just outstanding at f4-16.
>
> I believe serial numbers finally went to about 6
> million.
>
> Moose
>
>
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