VIVITAR
Vivitar is a large photographic marketing firm. That means that they sold photographic products that other companies made. The products are all labeled "Vivitar", but they were not made by Vivitar. Vivitar just advertised the items and distributed them to retailers. Yet Vivitar was always involved in the manufacturing process. If Vivitar thought a particular item would be appealing to consumers, they would send out an RFP (Request for Proposal) to its numerous manufacturers and see what they could offer to meet the need. There might be no response, the responses might produce products at too high a price, or a wonderful piece of photographic equipment might be made. Just a couple of the companies that Vivitar worked with were the Perkin-Elmer Company (of NASA fame) which made the amazing Vivitar Series 1 600mm f8 and 800mm f11 Solid Cats, and Kiron (Kino Optical Company) which made the fabulous Series 1 90-180mm f4.5 flat-field Macro Zoom, an amazing Series 1 24-48mm f3.8 wide-angle Zoom, and a super-fast 24mm f2.0 wide-angle lens. At some point Vivitar struck a deal with Seagull and marketed a 35mm SLR under the Vivitar name -- of course.
But, like several other photographic marketing/distribution firms (Bell & Howell, Allied Impex, Osawa, etc.), Vivitar went bankrupt around the turn of the century -- and the "Vivitar" name was puirchased by Sakar, yet another photographic marketing/distribution firm -- which had it's own Seagull-made SLR camera, labeled the Sakar SL-90MD -- which has little in common with the Vivitar V50.
Vivitar V50
The Vivitar 50 is an Minolta X-370n clone. It is usually seen with a 50mm f1.8 Vivitar lens, but since Vivitar marketed so many lenses over the years you have a lot of options.
At the top of this page is the V50 with a Vivitar Series 1 24-70mm f3.8/4.8 one-touch Macro zoom (made by Cosina, not Seagull), and above is a Vivitar Series 1 100mm f2.5-22 1:1 Macro (made by Kiron, not Seagull). It was designed so that there is no need for the typical macro extension tube. Below is the standard 50mm f1.8 (made by Seagull).
The V50 has the same features as the Seagull DF-300X and the Centon DF-300 -- like auto-exposure, auto-winder capability, and sensa-switch -- but unlike the others, it has the elegant charisma of the Vivitar name.
| Shutter | Shutter speeds |
Flash synch speed |
TTL meter- ing? |
ISO settings |
Auto expo- sure? |
AE lock? |
View- finder info |
Flash shoe |
Sensa- switch? |
PC plug? |
Multi- expo- sure? |
Cable release plug? |
Stop down button? |
Self timer? |
Mirror lock-up? |
Motor drive option? |
Battery used for |
Film indicator |
|
| Vivitar V50 | cloth, horizontal |
1-1,000 B |
1/60 | Y | 25- 3200 |
Y | Y | scale | Hot | Y | N | N | Y | N | Y | N | Y | meter | Film Window |