Vivitar 20mm f/3.8 Auto (The Best Vintage Wide-angle Lens) | Round Glass Review

This is a lens I lumped into the same category as the Lentar 21mm and Sigma 18mm that I reviewed in the last year or so. I had exactly zero interest in working with this lens until I used it. I was surprised after my first outing by how well it performed, how versatile it was for photography, and also how much I enjoyed the photos it delivered. Of the sixties-era ultrawides I’ve so far reviewed, this will be the first that I miss using after I sell it.
I want to put into perspective how this lens performs. I recently bought the Viltrox 20mm f/2.8, a brand-new lens that has the benefit of six decades of lens design improvements versus this lens. The Vivitar is so much better than the Viltrox, in the limited tests I’ve done of the Viltrox so far, that I honestly want to just send the Viltrox back. This Vivitar is, if you like the image character, such a stand-out lens, even today, that it’s worth finding if you like ultrawide lenses, quirky old lenses, and good all-purpose lenses that can focus on very-close subjects.
Here is, I think, the best thing I can say about an old lens like this: it works great on film cameras today. It works just as well on digital. Embrace the way it renders scenes and, honestly, the Vivitar 20mm f/3.8 will probably never let you down.

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Video Index:
0:00 - Intro
0:11 - Vivitar 20mm f/3.8 Round Glass Review
1:27 - Vivitar 20mm f/3.8 Specifications
2:22 - Vivitar 20mm f/3.8 Tips & Tricks
4:47 - Vivitar 20mm f/3.8 Seidel Analysis
7:11 - Vivitar 20mm f/3.8 Lens Diagram
7:58 - Vivitar 20mm f/3.8 Video Use
9:21 - Vivitar 20mm f/3.8 Strengths & Weaknesses
13:03 - Vivitar 20mm f/3.8 Review

References:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/cameraw...
http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Vivitar_A...
https://lens-db.com/vivitar-20mm-f38-...
https://allphotolenses.com/lenses/ite...
https://m42lens.com/m42-lens-database...

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"Suffer City Blues" by Suffer City and "Life ' the LAvish" by Jules Gaia used under active license from Epidemic Sound at the time of this video's upload.