My main lens for my outdoor work. See http://www.jonhartz.com. 90% shot with this lens, manual, and more recently (5 years) digital on Ricoh and Pentax bodies. Love it with the circular polarizer.

Excellent Value Build Quality Good optics

It's a slow lens but you would be surprised at how long of a shutter speed you can use an ultra-wide lens with, hand-held. I never go lower than 1/focal length, which means you can "get away" with a 1/20th shutter speed to buy an extra f-stop or two when the light isn't there.

My preference in photography are manual SLRs in both Medium Format and 35mm. (Yes, I own a digital. They're okay too but I reach for my trusty 15 year old Vivitar Pentax K mount first.) And my preference for lenses for these cameras are fixed focal length lenses. So, of course, if you're in the manual camera camp, you eventually come around to shopping for an ultra wide. My definition of this is 20mm and below, without going "fisheye". This, of course, brings us to the 19mm Vivitar 3.8. There aren't too many lenses out there to choose from that give you this wide a focal length that aren't fisheye lenses to choose from. Of those, most are expensive. Too expensive, in fact, for what might be considered a "novelty lens" that isn't always going to be in your camera bag al the time. Not willing to spend a small fortune for a lens that I knew going in that I'm not going to use very often but none-the-less want the focal length, the Vivitar was a natural - perhaps only, choice. I woud rate this lens optically as "good". Not great, but certainly acceptaby sharp with good color rendition. The barrel distortion was less than I expected for a lens in this price range. It has all metal construction and solidly built. F-stops are a "a little" stubborn - they don't glide like more expensive lenses - who cares? This is an excellent value for an ultra-wide lens.

Customer Service

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Similar Products Used:

Sigma 24mm (excellent) Zeiss Flektogon 50mm medium format (outstanding) Mir 30mm fisheye in MF (another great lens)

Compact and lightweight. Low price Well build optically it fits most needs

A bit more contrast would be fine. I never needed a greater aperture than 2.8 so the 3.8 doesn't matter for me - for some it may...

This lens is quite cheap for a ultra wide. It's build quite well, metal construction, durable feeling. The aperture ring is moving with hard clicking. You may not like the soung - but you'll not change the aperture without willing to. The picture quality is surprisingly good ! Better than my Tokina 17mm. Of course : I bought this lens because of the low price. But right now I am happy with it and sold the Tokina 17 and 24 mm instead. It's not as good as a ZEISS lens but - did you expect that ? As a result of 3.8 as greatest aperture: This lens is also quite small for a superwide ! That's what I like too when going out with it. Of course : There are better lenses in the world - but it will fit most needs!

Customer Service

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Similar Products Used:

Tokina 17mm, 24mm Zeiss Jena 2.8/20 Sigma 18-35, 24-70

wide good contrast good sharp pictures light weight easy to handle good colours and rend. the saturation is ok

flare(as all wide lenses) Colours could be better PRICE!!

This is again an example of a so called third party product which in some areas beats the original they normally are compared to.The Vivitar 19mm is a great lens,but compared with my Nikon 20 mm F4,theres a some way to go..but not enormous!This Vivitar is amazing for the price and i use it sometimes even for prowork getting great results,i use mainly for travelling,and can recomand this product very much,whether you are skilled or not. I rate it Highly but bevare of flare with it.!.. buy a good filter and lens hood,which is almost as expensive as this lens,and youll get good results.

Customer Service

none.

Similar Products Used:

Nikon 20 mmf4(genius) Vivitar 17-28 f4-4,5(better than this 20mm)and others brands. 17-35 af types..eq..

Great quality for not a whole lotta $$$.

A bit slow, but that's OK. I didn't buy it for its speed.

I bought my Vivitar 19mm f/3.8 lens in Nikon MF mount five years ago, as an economical supplement to my 24-50 zoom, so I could photograph cramped interiors when my 24mm was insufficient to do the job. I'm very happy with the images it produces; very crisp and contrasty. It's not AF, but who cares? I zone-focus it to 10 feet and f/8, pay no mind to focusing, use my TTL hotshoe flash with a diffuser dome, and my indoor pictures turn out perfect every single time. That's what I like about the super short focal length - the deep DOF. It's an excellent value for a superwide prime lens. All-metal construction and very adequate image quality. I suppose if you were to compare an ISO 25 film 11X14 enlargement made with this lens and pit it against an identical enlargement made by the Leitz, Zeiss, Nikkor or Canon lens equivalent costing many times more, a pro with a trained eye could pick the print made with the more expensive lens and be right every single time. But who cares? It's just so much hair-splitting! I regularly get raves about the quality of the photos this economical Vivitar superwide lens produces. -Suzie Robin Johnson's and Lisa Comshaw's uncle Andy.

Customer Service

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Similar Products Used:

Sigma 24-50mm f/4-5.6 zoom in Nikon AF mount (another excellent value, but unfortunately discontinued).

An inexpensive lens with metal construction and relatively low distortion.

Subject to flare due to a flat element within the lens and lacks a lens shade. Center hotspot of about one stop.

This is one of the few inexpensive, ultra wide primes out there. You simply cannot find a better value. Linear distortion is suprisingly low. If you can find a lens shade wide enough (small filter diameter) it's a decent lens. You'll need to spend at least five times more to get a significant jump in image quality.

Similar Products Used:

Minolta 20mm MD

rigid built,
very cheap

a bit smaller aperture

excellent lens for the money
my nikkor AFD20mm/2.8 is 4 times more expensive than this vivitar lens
but the image quality not not 2 times better
true to say, i don't see any difference between the quality if you don't blow up the pictures for more than 12R
color contrast is a bit less than the nikkor.
highly recommend

Customer Service

nil

Similar Products Used:

nikkor AFD20mm/2.8
vivitar MF24mm/2.8

Low Cost, mechanically sound

Spherical distortion on edges of photograph.

While this lens is cheap and may be the only way for amateurs to get a wide-angle lens of this caliber, this lens should only be that, for amateurs. There is significant spherical distortion around the edges of the photograph which is especially noticeable in the corners. The distortion is similar to that of a speed-effect in photoshop. I would not recommend this lens for serious photography work.

Similar Products Used:

None

Very cheap, well made, very good value.

Heavy pincushion distortion (2~2.5%), flare, a bit flat, soft corners.

Very good value for the money if you are on a budget or just don't want to spend a small fortune. I paid more than five times as much for a Voigtländer 15/4.5 and although you can tell the difference, it's not five times better. For the price of a few rolls and processing you can have a lens that will get you those special images that you can't make with a 28. Heck... a Rolleiflex shade costs more!

Customer Service

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Similar Products Used:

Tokina 19~35/3.5-4.5.