KONICA M HEXANON 28mm

Elmarit rival wide-angle lens

A review and Photo example of the KONICA M HEXANON 28mm F2.8.

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Gallery

The sample photo were taken with the LEICA M8

Review

Overview
Usage
Add info

1．Overview

The Hexanon 28mm F2.8 is a wide-angle lens for the Leica M mount manufactured by Konica.

The lens is made up of 8 elements in 7 groups, and is symmetrical with a retrofocus structure. The minimum shooting distance is 0.7m, and the maximum aperture is F2.8.

For a detailed explanation of the lens’s construction, see the Technical Report.

After screwing the lens hood onto the end of the lens barrel, the tip of the hood can be rotated 120°, and the hood slit can be moved to a position that does not interfere with the viewfinder. There is no device to fix the tip of the hood, so it may shift position inside the camera bag.

2．Usage

With vivid colors, delicate depiction, and abundant peripheral illumination, this lens is a perfect modern 28mm lens.

Apart from the 21-35mm bifocal lens, this is the widest-angle lens among Konica’s M-mount lenses.

The helicoid was smooth on the lens I used, and although there is no focus lever, there is no difficulty in operating the helicoid when focusing. The aperture ring also stops comfortably at 1/2 click stops.

The camera I used this lens on was a Leica M8, and since the sensor is an APS-H size of x1.33, I cannot evaluate the image quality of the peripheral areas. I would like to have an example of a full-size sensor, but I did not use it frequently in the fierce battle for 28mm focal lengths that I own, so I gave it up before introducing the Leica M9.

In terms of performance, this lens is sufficient, but it is not very interesting among the many unique 28mm focal length lenses.

3．Add info.

The M Hexanon 28mm is longer than the aspherical Elmarit 28mm, but shorter than the spherical Elmarit. It is just the right size to attach to a Leica M digital. It is also inexpensive, so it is a good choice if you don’t want to spend too much money on a wide-angle lens. You rarely see cloudy lenses on the used market, so the quality of the adhesive used to bond the lenses must be good.

The G ROKKOR and GR, which were converted from compact cameras, have a small number of lenses due to the constraints of mounting them on the camera, and the image quality in the peripheral areas is overlooked.

The M ROKKOR, which is designed as a single lens, depicts the peripheral areas more clearly than the two lenses mentioned above. This is proof that, like the Hexanon, the image quality in the peripheral areas becomes poor without a certain lens diameter. The weakness of the M ROKKOR is that the lens becomes cloudy, as described on the dedicated page. Most of the inexpensive M ROKKOR lenses have bubbles in the peripheral areas when viewed from the front.

Whether or not you need consistent image quality all the way to the periphery of the image when shooting depends largely on the subject, so there are many options for 28mm lenses. The only way to find the lens that suits you best is to try out the one that catches your eye.

Specification

Item	Value	note
focal length(mm)	28
Maximum aperture	2.8
Minimum aperture	22	1/2 step
Lens configuration	7groups 8elements
Minimum distance(m)	0.7
Lens length(mm)	40,4	Distance from mount flange
Lens max diameter(mm)	52
Filter diameter(mm)	46
Weight(g)	230
Release date	1999
Price(Yen/No-tax)	¥113,000-

Focal length	Lens name	Release date	Technical Report
28mm	M-HEXANON f28 / F2.8	1999年	28/50/90mm-PDF
50mm	M-HEXANON f50 / F2	1999年	28/50/90mm-PDF
90mm	M-HEXANON f90 / F2.8	1999年	28/50/90mm-PDF
35mm	M-HEXANON f35 / F2	2000年	35mm-PDF
50mm	M-HEXANON f50 / F1.2	2001年	50mm/F1.2-PDF
21-35mm	M-HEXANON f21-35 / F3.4-4	2002年	21-35mm-PDF