Takumar Is Beautiful

<p>Hin Man;<br>

I understand your love of your "Taks". I own a 300mm f4.0 which I used in my film days, and, looking back through my old photos, always gave me excellent results. Alas, those days are gone. Due to poor eyesight and the inability to find one decent optometrist or lab for a proper prescription.<br>

It has worked well one my digital cameras, but never as nicely as on my old ME Super. I included a few here. All were shot with a ME Super on Kodachrome 64, although I have no record of the shutter speed or f-stop.</p><div></div>

<p>Again...</p><div></div>

<p>Finally....</p><div></div>

<p>Thank you Don for your story and comment. I don't have the actual Kodachrome experience but I can share the admiration. My film fancy has not gone down the path with slides. When the film fancy path crosses at odd times, I will try shooting slides with the Takumar lens. <br /><br /><br /> My eyesights are getting worse as I age. I hate to say it but it is a bit easier to shoot the Takumar with non-Pentax digital camera with peek focusing aid and magnification. I have not tried K-3 and I don't know if the focus peaking goes with magnification. In the Sony line, the peaking focus can go with close to 10x magnification and I find the new features really help me though the unfortunate and continuous problems that I face constantly with aging eyes. <br /><br /></p>

<p><a href=" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5481/9684300469_182b504abd_c.jpg" alt="" /></a><br /> Super-Takumar 135mm f/3.5 and Lens Turbo</p>

<p>I finally get a reasonably good copy of the 8-element version in the Super-Takumar 50mm f/1.4. It fringes beautifully wide open. I have not run my course with the lens but my A7 has a senor reflection problem with greenish reflection when I shoot this lens wide open. Not all the time but some of the time that I have to re-shoot in different angle<br>

<br /><a href=" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5589/14460577808_c49a326af3_b.jpg" alt="" /></a><br>

Super-Takumar 50mm f/1.8 8-element mounted with a M42 to C/Y adapter on<br />Contax 137MA body</p>

<p>Wrong subtitle, it is the Super-Takumar 50mm f/1.4 8-element version.</p>

<p>That Luminous Landscape article is wrong about the 8 element Super Takumar. The 8-element ("Planar killer" design) has no yellowing Thorium element. It is differentiated by that, the location of the infrared focusing mark (inside the f/4, not outside it,) and a pretty low serial number (don't know that I've ever seen one that started with over "150"). The yellowing Thorium element was the version after the 8 element, a 7 element design, still called Super Takumar.</p>