What's the most enjoyable manual focus only lens you ever used?

I've owned the 300mm f4.5 aisle, 180mm f2.8 ais, 135mm f2 ais, and 28mm f2.8 aid.

I liked the 28mm the best.
 
I've owned the 300mm f4.5 aisle, 180mm f2.8 ais, 135mm f2 ais, and 28mm f2.8 aid.

I liked the 28mm the best.

Those are some neat lenses! The 180/2.8 AiS is STILL pretty decent, as is the 135/2 AIS. I gave away my 28mm f/2.8 Ai (no Ai-S) to a beginning shooter, and he enjoyed the hell out of it. I kinda miss the 28mm length....currently only have it in a couple of zooms, no primes, just 20,24,and 35mm primes...
 
I've owned the 300mm f4.5 aisle, 180mm f2.8 ais, 135mm f2 ais, and 28mm f2.8 aid.

I liked the 28mm the best.

Those are some neat lenses! The 180/2.8 AiS is STILL pretty decent, as is the 135/2 AIS. I gave away my 28mm f/2.8 Ai (no Ai-S) to a beginning shooter, and he enjoyed the hell out of it. I kinda miss the 28mm length....currently only have it in a couple of zooms, no primes, just 20,24,and 35mm primes...

Yeah they each haday something I liked.

The 300mm f4.5 could be shot directly into the sun with no flaring. If I had bought the 9 rounded bladed version I'd probably still have it.

The 180mm f2.8 ais was decent all around.

The 135mm f2 was beautiful when you nailed the focus in nice light.

The 28mm f2.8 ais is what got me into astro and wide angle portraiture.

They all had their positives and negatives but I just got sick of manual focus.
 
I'm still voting the Kodak Ektar 80mm 2.8 for Hasselblad F series cameras. Manual aperture FTW
 
Vivitar 35mm f2.8 Minolta mount I use on my Sony a6000. Built like a tank and butter smooth. I think it was made by Kiron. My Celtic 50mm f3.5 macro is a close 2nd
 
Batis 18mm f/2.8
Loxia 35mm f2
Loxia 50mm f2
Distagon 28mm f/2.8
Canon FD 50mm f/1.4
 
Never really found manual focusing only lenses to be what I would call an enjoyable experience.
I do use my auto/manual in A/M mode a lot though and fine tune the focus myself when I want to, but being forced to isn't a good thing, imo.
As for the 'silky smooth' comments, I have never had a gritty rough focusing lens, if I did, I'd return it as defective.
 
My Argus C44 had a focus wheel geared to the lens, so I would just pull in the focus and then hit the shutter button with the same finger. It wasn't great or smooth, but it let me take one handed shots like I so often do today with the DSLR.
 
The goal, for me, is not really the manual focus but to have small gem with which one likes to photograph at the very cheap price.
 
That would be the 180mm Carl Zeiss I had on the Hasselblad. Optically the 80mm was just as good, but it was an older series that was a bit more fiddly to use and awkward to focus with the bellows pro shade in place.
 

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