A Woodland Strawberry (Fragaria vesca) in the national park, shot with Asahi Super-Takumar 135mm/3.5 m42-lens on Canon EOS 350D. Left alone, the other berries picked.

Some of the Takumar M42-lenses I owned/own. Works great on my Canon EOS, of course :) And they are also very pretty.

A day in the park with my daugter digging in the sandbox. We hade fun with some friends and had a good break from everyday troubles. I like the attitude in this photo! I think this was made with Asahi Super-Multi-Coated Takumar 55mm/1.8 M42-lens. I had it on the camera all afternoon. It’s has a good feeling with fast focus and quality.

These beautiful flowers Aquilegia vulgaris grow in a place near my home (yes, I live in a nice place). They come in different shades of blue to white. In swedish they are called Akleja, according to Wikipedia en english name is European Columbine. The image is made with my lens Asahi Super-Takumar 28mm/3.5, an M42 lens attached to my Canon EOS 350D. I also used an M42 extensionring from Chinon. I kind of like the result.

There was an announcement today about the restarted production of singlecoated, manual Takumar-lenses with M42 mount. Great news for us Takumarfans!

“We realized the small cult rising around the Takumar-series“, spokesman Snel Focman says. “And we felt the need to get some of the action instead of people just buying old, used copies.”

Takumars are hear again

In modern time you need accurate information about the lenses capability, so the focal-lengths will be 34.49mm, 51.3mm, 84.43mm, 102.8mm.

My friend Daniel insisted I should have one of these, so I went and bought one from UK on ebay. Can you have enough of normal or short tele primes? ;) I started collecting Takumar lenses, so of course I needed the 135mm. Lets see if it’s any good…

Super Takumar 135mm/3.5, angleview

The purchase
As usual with these old manual lenses it wasn’t that much hat I payed, £8.50 + shipping £9.00. Later on I also got a hood from ebay, it need an original hood – makes a lot of difference. The hood was £7.95 + shipping £3. So if you buy a lens like this, get a hood too. Since I bought from a good seller in UK, there was no problem with shipping or the purchase. Avarage price on Pentaxforums.com is set to $38. Read the full article "Review of Asahi Super-Takuma…" »

In a trip to Granbergsdal with friends I made the images of pidgins with the Asahi Super-Takumar 135mm/3.5. The black and white was converted in Photoshop and the little grain came from a layer with scanned T-Max 400 imported in photoshop and put on this digital image.

Pidgins on rooftop

Takumars are often great wonder of quality, and so are normals like this Asahi S-M-C Takumar 55mm/1.8. My most used lenses are the normal primes (around 50mm) so naturally I wanted a Takumar of some sort in the normal range since I collect them. I managed to find an auction with some great stuff…

S-M-C Takumar 55mm f1.8 M42

The purchase
I got this on swedish ebay in a package with a lot of stuff. There was this Super-Multi-Coated Takumar 55mm/1.8 lens and then:

• Asahi Pentax Spotmatic SLR in great condition
• Tele-Tokina 105mm/f2.8 lens which turned out to be really rare
• Soligor 35mm/3.5 which I sold
• Gossen Sixtar lightmeter
• big Braun 370 BVC flash I can’t get to work (corroded batteries)
• filters and accessories

All for about $40 and then shipping. I think that was a good price. Some of the items are now sold, I keep the ones I use.

Read the full article "Review of Asahi S-M-C Takuma…" »

Swedish nature near my home a mild winter, but with some ice. This is Asahi Super-Takumar 135mm/3.5 version. There is a creek making it’s way down the hillside and a small waterfall I go to sometimes.

Ice pattern with Super-Tak 135mm

Spruce on ice with Super-Tak 135

Ice world with Super-Tak 135

As I sit here today and watch the images form yesterday, I see things I want to change. Lucky me that the subject is nearby, will give it another go tonight. However, I like this portrait photograph from yesterday made with Asahi Pentax S-M-C Takumar 55mm/1.8 m42 on Canon EOS 350D. Fixed a bit in Photoshop (black and whit, crop, contrast).

Photograph of Sara made with Asahi S-M-C Tak 55mm f1.8