Playing With Lenses: A Kodak Moment: Kodak Anaston 51mm 1:4.5

Cost: $15 for Kodak Pony 135 Camera (average market price $7)

This is the second Kodak Pony Camera I borrowed the lens from and my third Franken-lens. Slightly less cool looking than Kodak Anastar 44mm, and slightly less quality, but still overall a decent lens. And is there a better way to take pictures with this 60 year old lens then a walk in to the old historic center of Vancouver, Gas Town.

The pictures were a little flat, but that had more to do with the heavy smog from the recent forest fires, than the quality of the lens. Not super sharp, and some color fringing on the edges, but not to bad for a lens this old, and for a lens that was never the top of the line.

Focussing was pretty easy, using the helicoid it was mounted on. Possibly some better tuning for sharpness would have been possible if I also used the focus mechanism of the lens itself, but hey, I was lazy and it seems the grip itself was missing from my lens. As the lens has no coating, do remember to take pictures away fro the sun, in order to preserve clarity.

In order to use this lens on a digital camera, it first needs to be removed from it's donor. Pretty easy to do... a few screws, and non-destructive to the camera. Once removed, it shows the small and efficient design of this lens.

As we do not want to use the shutter mechanism of the lens, I blocked the shutter with a little piece of plastic.

I used a M32 lens cap where I drilled a hole with a step drill bit. This allowed to mount efficiently on a M32 to NEX helicoid.

The result looked great, even when it's a little cumbersome to change the aperture as it was very close to the lens cap. You don't want to play with aperture anyway due to the loss of sharpness.

In summary, not a bad little lens, but it does show it's age and mediocre origin. Then again, it made the pictures look like they were shot for a 60's magazine. Very unique!

Lens Specification:

Focal Length: 51mm
Maximum Aperture: F4.5
Minimum Aperture: F22
Image Format: 35mm
Lens Mount: na
Optics: 3 elements
Blades: 6 blades
Focussing: Manual
Minimum Focus:2.5ft
Filter Size: na
Weight: na
Length: na
Production: 1950-1954
Serial Number: na

More information on Kodak

Original Camera: Kodak Pony 135
The Kodak Pony cameras are a series of Bakelite bodied small format cameras designed by Arthur H Crapsey for Kodak. They were slotted into the Kodak lineup between the roll film Brownie and the high quality 35mm Signet series.

Like the Brownie series cameras, the Pony cameras have simple viewfinders. They featured midrange Anaston lenses until the later Kodak Pony II with the four element Anastars. Knobs are used for film advance and rewind. The Kodak Pony 135 originally sold for $34.75.

Kodak Anastigmats, a 3-element Cooke triplet type, were manufactured in a variety of focal lengths and apertures and usually mounted in front-element-focusing mounts. In the late 1940s, Anastigmats were rebranded as Anastons.

Old Commercial for Kodak Pony 135
Old Commercial for Kodak Pony 135