Photographs By Robin Parmar

The Great Vivitar 28mm Bestiary

Back in the manual focus era, Vivitar were known as a great third-party lens company. Though based in the USA, they sourced their glass from the best Japanese manufacturers: Komine, Kiron and Tokina. Even now their lenses can provide first-class optics for those that do not mind -- or actually prefer -- to manually focus their camera.

I became particularly interested in the 28mm focal length, which used to be a great wide angle in the film era, and provides a comfortable "normal equivalent" on the APS-C size sensor of today's Pentax digital cameras. It is a bit of a mystery why Pentax have no current 28mm lens. Their FA 31mm Limited, while widely regarded as one of the best lenses on the planet, is a bit too tight (coming in closer to 32mm in formal tests) and is very expensive as well.

So, back in Augst 2008 I started the thread Vivitar 28mm As FA 31mm Replacement? on Pentax Forums. It soon became obvious that there were many different variants on the Vivitar 28mm, but little did I know that I would soon end up cataloguing fully thirty of them! I realised that it would help to number the variants for reference, but soon I got bogged down in renumbering to accomodate new entries and the thread got rather messy.

This page is a long overdue attempt to provide a single home for the definitive list. More information will come as I have time.

A word about organisation. The lenses are grouped by mount. TX was a "universal" mount type that requires the correct adaptor for Pentax cameras. M42 is the original Pentax screw mount; a readily-available adaptor means you can also use these on current bodies. K-mount is the current bayonet mount, but without the auto-aperture feature some people take for granted. Still, it is dead easy to stop down the lens using the green button on Pentax digital cameras. Finally, KA indicates K-mount lenses with the contacts for automatic aperture control by the body.

The lenses are indexed using the following scheme:

Following the lens ID is the barrel text exactly as found, always starting with "Vivitar" for consistency. You'll have to pay close attention to this, as some variants differ little. After this the filter size and manufacturer are given, if these are not already obvious. Finally missing info is noted.

TX mount (3)
T91 "Vivitar / 28MM 1:2.5 / AUTO WIDE-ANGLE / No. 37xxxxx / Ø58mm"
T92 "Vivitar / 28MM 1:2.8 / AUTO WIDE-ANGLE / No. 37xxxxxx / Ø52mm"
T93 "Vivitar / WIDE-ANGLE / 28mm 1:2.8 / No. 37xxxxx / AUTO" [58mm]

M42 mount (13)
M01 "Vivitar / 28mm 1:2.0 / CLOSE FOCUS WIDE ANGLE / No. 28xxxxxx" [55mm]
M02 "Vivitar / 28MM 1:2.8 / MC / WIDE ANGLE / NO. 28xxxxxx / Ø49MM"
M03 "Vivitar / 28mm 1:2.8 / MC / WIDE ANGLE / JAPAN / No. 28xxxxxx / Ø49MM"
M04 "Vivitar / 28MM 1:2.8 / MC / CLOSE FOCUS WIDE ANGLE / NO. 28xxxxxx / Ø49MM"

M11 "Vivitar / 28MM 1:2 / AUTO WIDE-ANGLE / No. 22xxx / Ø55MM"
M12 "Vivitar / 28MM 1:2.5 / AUTO WIDE-ANGLE / No. 22xxxxxx / Ø62MM"
M13 "Vivitar / 28MM 1:2.5 / AUTO WIDE-ANGLE / No. 22xxxxxx / Ø67MM"
M14 "Vivitar / WIDE-ANGLE / 28mm 1:2.5 / No. 22xxxxxx / AUTO" [62mm]
M15 "Vivitar / WIDE-ANGLE / 28mm 1:2.5 / No. 22xxxxxx" [62mm]
M16 "Vivitar / 28mm 1:2 / MC / WIDE-ANGLE / No. 22xxxxxx / Ø55MM [Kiron]"

M21 "Vivitar / WIDE ANGLE / 28mm 1:2.5 / No. 26xxx / AUTO" [62mm, make?]
M22 "Vivitar / 28MM 1:2.8 / MC / WIDE ANGLE / Ø49MM" [0/0M96301485 on barrel]

M91 "Vivitar Series 1 / 28mm 1:1.9 / VMC / Auto Wide Angle / No. 37xxxxxx / Ø58MM"

K-mount (13)
K01 "Vivitar / 28MM 1:2.0 / MC / CLOSE FOCUS WIDE ANGLE / NO. 28xxxxxx / Ø49MM"
K02 "Vivitar / 28MM 1:2.8 / MC / CLOSE FOCUS WIDE ANGLE / NO. 28xxxxxx / Ø49MM"
K03 "Vivitar / 28MM 1:2.8 / MC / WIDE ANGLE / NO. 28xxxxxx / Ø49MM"
K04 "Vivitar / 28MM 1:2.8 / AUTO WIDE ANGLE / NO. 28xxxxxx / Ø49MM"
K05 "Vivitar / RL EDITION / 28mm 1:2.8 / CLOSE FOCUS / MC / NO. 28xxxxxx / Ø49mm"
K06 "VIVITAR / SMS / 28mm 1:2.8 / MC / CLOSE FOCUS WIDE ANGLE / NO. 28xxxxxx / Ø49MM"

K11 "Vivitar / 28MM 1:2 / WIDE-ANGLE / NO. 22xxxxxx / Ø55MM"
K12 "Vivitar / 28MM 1:2 / AUTO WIDE-ANGLE / No. 22xxxxxx / Ø55MM"
K13 "Vivitar / 28MM 1:2 / MC / WIDE-ANGLE / NO. 22xxxxxx / Ø55MM"
K14 "Vivitar / 28MM 1:2.5 / AUTO WIDE-ANGLE / NO. 22xxxxxx / Ø67MM"

K21 "Vivitar / 28MM 1:2.8 / WIDE ANGLE / MC / NO. 42xxxxxx / Ø49MM" [Bauer]
K22 "Vivitar / 28MM 1:2.8 / AUTO / Ø49MM / VMC" [make?]

K91 "Vivitar Series 1 / 28MM 1:1.9 / VMC / AUTO WIDE ANGLE / No. 37xxxxxx / Ø58MM"

KA-mount (8)
A01 "Vivitar / 28MM 1:2.0 / MC / CLOSE FOCUS WIDE ANGLE / NO. 28xxxxxx / Ø49MM"
A02 "VIVITAR / SMS / 28mm 1:2.8 / MC / CLOSE FOCUS WIDE ANGLE / NO. 28xxxxxx / Ø49MM"
A03 "Vivitar / 28MM 1:2.8 / MC / CLOSE FOCUS WIDE ANGLE / NO. 28xxxxxx / Ø49MM [Komine]"
A04 "VIVITAR / 28MM 1:2.8 / MC / WIDE ANGLE / NO. 28xxxxxx / Ø49MM [Komine]"

A21 "Vivitar / 28MM 1:2.8 / MC / WIDE ANGLE / Ø49MM" [Cosina]
A22 "Vivitar / 28mm 1:2.8 / MC / WIDE ANGLE LENS / NO. 61xxxxxx / Ø52MM" [make?]
A23 "Vivitar / 28mm 1:2.8 / MC / WIDE ANGLE JAPAN / Ø49mm / IMAGE by" [make?]
A24 "Vivitar / RL EDITION / 28MM 1:2.8 / MC / WIDE ANGLE / Ø49MM / 97xxxxxx" [Cosina?]

In case you were wondering, I have several of these 37 different lenses, but nowhere near all of them.

If anyone appreciates the work I've done and wants to donate an A01, I'd sure be grateful. ;-)

history:
v2.05 (19 Jan 2010): corrected A03, updated totals
v2.04 (18 Jan 2010): add A24, M15
v2.03 (18 May 2009): add A03, A04
v2.02 (5 April 2009): T93 casing fix, filter size on M14
v2.01 (4 April 2009): add K06, fix casing on M and T lenses
v2.00 (3 April 2009): formatted and online