One interesting thing about this lens for video purposes is that it comes with two aperture rings. One is normal with clicks and f-stop markings like you’d expect, but the other is for focusing. It allows you to set your f-stop with the regular aperture ring and leave it while you then open the focusing aperture wide open to let as much light in and get a shallow dof so you can get precision focus. Then when you close the focusing aperture down it stops automatically right where you left it, so you don’t have to look at the lens during this process.

For video this is kind of cool because you can stop down the normal aperture all the way, and then just use the focusing aperture to control your light levels if you are in an environment where they are changing constantly while recording. This focusing aperture is smooth (no clicks) and silent. Some people pay money to have their apertures “de-clicked” on lenses for video use.

Pretty cool. There are several lenses from this era that have this feature.

I also took the guys spotmatic f, and 55 f1.8 too. I guess I’m into m42 land now ;)

turned out it was not exactly the Takumar lens i imagined as it’s an SMC one, here, near the end of the page:

http://www.taunusreiter.de/Cameras/Pentax_Takumar_85mm.html

good to get to know you guys and this website!

good luck to all.
PRDF

“… you need the original adapter to ensure perfect infinity focus.”

the above line is from the site below:

http://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/sold-items/27380-sale-%5Bsold%5D-super-takumar-85mm-f-1-9-a.html

hoe this helps!

good luck
PRDF

nice job here reviewing this lens.

agree with you: SMC and coatings of any kind in general are of course very important but i have also used many great old lenses with little or no coating at all and still got great results no matter what … in fact, some pictures i have taken with an old half broken Zeiss Contaflex camera are still among my best shots ever!

your pictures here also prove your point very well that this lens is doing its job a lot better than even expected! Pentax Takumar lenses were among the best of their time and other camera brand users also went for them, just as you’ve done it yourself.

it all depends anyways, on type of film / digital sensor, subject, lighting, color range in the scene, negative or slide (when using film) and so on. properly used, any combination of lens + camera + film (and its lab processing later) or digital sensor + lighting etc can give results no other combo can do under the same conditions …

but to the main point:

the reason i’m here is because i was hoping to find info on a similar lens by Pentax that also had an extra ring to control softness of the picture, intended mainly for portraits. and my search brought me to your little nice webpage here of course.

have never seen nor used that lens myself but i saw a Pentax lens catalog advertising it ages ago in the last century. do you or anyone reading this post have any ideas about such a lens? or a similar lens: with an extra ring (aside from the focusing ring or the aperture ring) that lets photographer control / reduce the lens’s sharpness in order to obtain soft portraits.

i have done a similar trick myself on an old 300mm Helikor lens, when i removed the front element and put it back in reverse accidentally. the lens could not focus on infinity anymore when in that mode but in ranges up to several meters, it gave soft and halo-ed portraits of exceptional looks! the aperture ring of the camera (a fully manual one) then acted like the softness / sharpness controller available on that particular 85mm Takumar lens mentioned earlier. of course the 300mm lens itself was rather clumsy to use for portraits as it was heavy and large and a tripod was really necessary to use but i did take great shots of my little twin cousins back then that amazed everybody including myself! ;-)

anyway, if any info on that particular 85mm Takumar lens, please let me know! if i find it, i’ll post it here for you …

thx and good luck to you!

best regards
PRDF