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.

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Introduction
As you might now I’m a fan of Yashica cameras and lenses (the reason I started YashicaForum.com offcourse). It all started out with a couple of old rangefinders and reading about the greatness of ML-series of lenses on forum.mflenses.com … at the time I think it was the ML 24mm that was being discussed. I decided to get an adapter for Contax/Yashica and try this manual lenses on my Canon DSLR.

Yashica ML 50mm/2 Front

The purchase
I got this lens from Richard for free – thanks :) I also bought one on swedish ebay Tradera, just because it was so cheap and I didn’t wan’t it to go unsold. They are easy to find, buy one if you can!

Side of the lens Yashica ML 50mm/f2

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When you deal with old lenses, you often get lenses and cameras you know nothing of, as a extra treat when you buying for something else. To be honest, often they are crap – but sometime you get real treasures. Lets find out which category this Tele-Tokina belongs to…

Front of the lens

The purchase
I bought this lens in a package with Pentax Spotmatic camera, Asahi S-M-C 55mm/1.8 lens, Soligor 35mm/3.5 (old preset), flash, bag, pocket tripod and some other stuff – it all went for about £40. The things I was aiming for was the Pantax camera and lens. The package arrived, and believe me, it was felt like christmas to unpack this stuff ;)

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A Zeiss-lens, extension-rings and shipping for about 25$? No it’s not a fairytale, I actually got this bargain from swedish ebay Tradera. It all started when I saw an ad with unknown lens marked “aus Jena”…

Carl Zeiss Jena S 135mm/3.5

My purchase
I could not believe my luck. Was I the only one connecting the mark “aus Jena” to Carl Zeiss? Actually, someone else competed with me about the final bid, but I still got this 135mm lens for only 140 swedish kronor (about 20$). When it arrived in the mail, I put it to good use immediately!

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