P&B had limited control over the appearance and design of lenses, having to work with design changes made by the Japanese manufacturers. They also had to switch manufacturers from time to time depending on what was being offered to them. An important difference between P&B and other rebadged lens distributors of the time, such as Soligor, was P&B's requirement that every lens they distributed go through stringent quality control testing done at P&B, in addition to any quality testing done by the manufacturer. Other distributors tended to rely solely on the manufacturer's quality control measures.

Vivitar Professional was a rarely used badge that Ponder & Best applied to lenses they believed would appeal to professional photographers instead of to the consumers and amateur photographers who made up their usual customer base. Only one such lens was ever commercially distributed though at least one other is known to have reached the prototype stage. The badge was used in the late 1960s and was later replaced by the Vivitar Series 1 badge. This the most common and well-known of the Komine lens families made by Vivitar. Some of these lens are extensively documented in the John C. Wolf book, The Vivitar Guide. [50] Instruction pamphlets on Vivitar multipliers, Vivitar brand lenses warning with Pk-R mounts used on AF Pentax bodies, T4 mounts at Butkus's OrphanCameras.comGreat little, easy to use camera, good picture quality, reliable,excellent value for money.Recommended. q=1630+Stewart+Street,+Santa+Monica,+CA+90406&hl=en&ll=34.032079,-118.468248&spn=0.002455,0.002135&hnear=1630+Stewart+St,+Santa+Monica,+California+90404&gl=us&t=h&z=19 Google maps view of 1630 Stewart Street, Santa Monica, CA 90406 Hiebert, Timothy H. Parallel Importation in US Trademark Law, Greenwood Press, 1994, P. 114. ISBN 0-313-28956-5

In the 1960s, Ponder & Best was located at 11201 West Pico Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90064. [11]. The building at this location, built in 1947, is still standing and is zoned for retail use. [12] In 1964, they also opened two branch offices, one in New York city and one in Chicago. [1] Series 1 200mm f/3.5 Auto Focus Telephoto, introduced 1984, 67mm filter size (initially Komine and then taken production taken over by Cosina) A real estate slump in the late 1980s forced Chase Group to sell several of its business. Vivitar and Hanimex were sold to UK-Based Gestetner PLC (itself owned by Ricoh) in early 1990. In March of 1990, John Bourne was named president of Vivitar. [21] After Gestetner took over, Vivitar shifted it's focus from high-end lenses and flashes, to hand-held, point-and-shoot cameras. [22]In late 1971, Ponder & Best moved from the Pico Blvd location in LA to 1630 Stewart Street, Santa Monica, CA 90406. [15]. The building at this location is still standing and has since been renovated. [16] Mine is loaded with a Sandisk Extreme III 1gb SD card and has videoed for 45mins non-stop!, between 300-145 pictures depending on picels.