> http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=7521768496 > Mark, is that of interest to your page?
I might quibble a bit over the subject line. I do not believe that these lenses are particularly "special", except for the fancy cosmetic treatment. In particular, the 70-210/2.8-4 lens simply seems to be the 4th-generation VS1 70-210, which is not really all that great a lens (it's really quite pedestrian, compared to its predecessors, in my humble opinion). At the time these lenses were being made, the "Series 1" name was being used unashamedly so often by Vivitar, being applied to almost any Vivitar lens that wasn't a too-obvious bottom-of-the-line consumer lens, that the once-prestigious VS1 label had become almost a joke. [Admittedly, I don't have any experience with the 28-105/2.8-3.8, so I can't apply these comments directly to that lens (although, well...).] About a year or so ago perhaps, one of these "presentation boxes" of gold-colored lenses was on eBay, and I looked at it semi-seriously. The seller had claimed that the 70-210 was an "f/2.8" lens. I wrote to him to verify that (since it would certainly then have been quite an interesting lens to me), and he claimed in his reply that it was indeed a constant f/2.8 lens. I looked at his photos carefully and decided that, despite his claim to the contrary, and simply because it used 58mm filters (a 210mm f/2.8 lens would probably use 77mm filters, right?), it just had to be the 4th-generation 70-210. I have the five VS1 70-210's already (as Mark's web site attests) (and the first three are all quite good, especially the 2nd and the 3rd) (and the last, the Q-DOS version, is a lot of fun to use, even if it's otherwise the same lens as the mediocre 4th-generation). If the gold 70-210 had been any of the first three versions, I'd have been very interested. But not if it's the 4th... Rather than "gilding the lily", I think this is an example of "gilding the dandelion" - <g>. Finally, if I may "pat myself on the back" a bit, I think it actually was "discerning" of me to ~not~ have jumped at buying that kit - <g>. Fred
