So Hawks announced this in 2017, but apparently couldn't make the small batch cost work on what they had already planned to carry a decently hefty price. There are rumors that a few copies exist. I'm curious; has anyone ever seen it or actually had it in use?
The articles say that Hawks Factory is / was a Japanese company but in my understanding it was a Taiwan based company although their products were also sold in Japan and seemed to have some Japanese distribution / marketing activities. I've never seen any of these lenses in Japanese stores.
Also, Hawks Factory doesn't seem to be active anymore (?) as their websites are no longer alive and their Japanese language Facebook page has had not posts after 2017 (the last post announced pre-orders of this lens).
Their site in Taiwan is still active hawksfactory.tw but it looks like their eBay store is gone, so I'd reach out to verify any orders are going to be fulfilled.
Thanks for the link, which worked well. I have the feeling that's probably the closest I'll come to anyone who actually touched the lens.
It was mentioned that:
The lens unit is made in Japan, and assembly is done at Hawks Factory in Taiwan. The unique design of the lens barrel is also one of its attractions. Although it is a lens for Leica, it does not lean too heavily towards a typical Leica design, but rather shows individuality while remaining traditional.
This lens is an original manual focus lens designed and manufactured by Hawk's Factory, the company well-known for its helicoid adapters. To put it simply, it's a lens made by Hawk.
...
It seems Hawk's Factory was in charge of lens design and assembly but they had outsourced the optical unit from some manufacturer based in Japan. Seems like it would have been an interesting character lens (having some similarity to Kistar lenses) but perhaps a bit difficult to sell enough units at 198K yen (as that seems to have been the official price for pre-orders).
It was mentioned that:
The lens unit is made in Japan, and assembly is done at Hawks Factory in Taiwan. The unique design of the lens barrel is also one of its attractions. Although it is a lens for Leica, it does not lean too heavily towards a typical Leica design, but rather shows individuality while remaining traditional.
This lens is an original manual focus lens designed and manufactured by Hawk's Factory, the company well-known for its helicoid adapters. To put it simply, it's a lens made by Hawk.
...
It seems Hawk's Factory was in charge of lens design and assembly but they had outsourced the optical unit from some manufacturer based in Japan. Seems like it would have been an interesting character lens (having some similarity to Kistar lenses) but perhaps a bit difficult to sell enough units at 198K yen (as that seems to have been the official price for pre-orders)....Show more →
I like the samples he posted. Wide open, it's not quite as good across the frame as the ZM Biogon 35/2, but stopped down to f/5.6 or f/8, I'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference.
I didn't realize Mr. Sawamura was such a prolific writer. I enjoyed reading through the MetalMickey posts and downloaded Cameraholics Lab: Understanding the Unique Characteristics of Old Lenses Through Lens Configuration Diagrams, the mook he wrote with Yuji Ueno. We'll see how far I get before I'm totally lost without translation help, but it's such an interesting subject, I'm sure it'll be worth it.
