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.

Super-Multi-Coated frontlens

The lens
It is a M42-lens with manual focus and aperture. To use it on a DSLR I need a M42-adapter. Like many of the Asahi lenses from the time it has a button for Auto / Manual-mode and you can use this to open and close the aperture while focusing. Very handy. This is well buit, you can feel the quality turning the ring – the focusring is very well balanced, not to stiff, not to loose and fast (not to much turn). It is hard to describe the feeling, but you just know that it’s good quality when holding it.

Aperture blades

The Super-Multi-Coated Takumar lenses from Asahi was manufactured from 1971-1976, during the development of multicoating. The filterthread is 49mm. It’s a slim lens like many other manual, normal primes. This and other 50mm primes of the Takumar era goes for $30 on ebay.

Side of this Takumar 55mm

Results
I think this lens is at it’s best with saturated images and nice soft bokeh. Good for the autumn leafs or portraits. On my Canon EOS 350D the cropfactor is 1.6 giving this lens the imagesize of a 88mm lens (although it really means less of the lens projection is being used). Can be sharp if needed too. I think this lens is best used at a shallow depth of field. Not because it is bad otherwise, but because that’s where it’s strength is.

For some reason I often get wrong focus with this lens even though it feels easy to focus. But when it gets right, it gets good. I’ve shot some photos in to the sun without problem so I guess the coating is ok.

I like this lens, but it has some great competition in my collection so it don’t get used every day.

Images

See images below. You can also watch my set at Flickr.

Autumn berries

"Flags" in sundown

Fence and sun

Machines

Autumn leafs and sky

Pros

• Easy to focus, smooth ring turning and fast moving
• Very well built with metal
• Sharpness, although some think it’s a bit soft at f1.8
• Bokeh is soft
• Vibrant / saturated
• Value for money (one remaining bargain amongst mf-lenses)
• Good enough coating

Cons

• Min aperture f16
• Eventhough easy focus I feel that I miss focus often with this lens… not sure why, but I’m quite convinced it’s just me (or the small viewfinder in the DSLR I have) in this case.

Reading
Reviews at Pentaxforums.com
Topic at Manual Focus Forum
Super-Takumar version at MFLenses

• Review of Yashica ML 50mm/2
• Review of Asahi Auto Takumar 85mm/1.8
• Review of Pentax Super Takumar 35mm/3.5
• Review of Asahi Super-Takumar 135mm/3.5 M42-lens
• Review of Auto Yashinon-DX 50mm/1.7 m42-lens

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

The lens
This is perhaps the most common Yashica ML 50mm lens, but there are other faster versions also f1.4, f1.7, f1.9. It is small in size. The build quality seems good – turning rings feels smooth and reminds me of the feeling with some Pentax-lenses. It is multicoated and fully manual (it has no auto/manual-swtich or preset or anything like that). It is Contax/Yashica-mount so you need such a camera or adapter. I have used the lens on a Canon EOS 350D, for which I bought an adapter from China.

Mount of this manual lens

Results
It’s very sharp. The bokeh is soft and wideopen it reminds me of some russian lenses, with almost a spinning feeling in the background. Good saturated colours. It gives a clear bright image in the viewfinder to focus on. Imagewise I can’t find anything to complain about with this lens.

Yashica ML 50 f2 from front

The Yashica ML 50mm/2 is small. The size feels nice but there is one thing that can be annoying sometimes: the aperturering is the most inner thing on the lens, that is it sist nearest the camerabody and can be hard to get a grip on. The focusring is easy to grip and feels very well built.

As mentioned above there are faster Yashica ML 50mm. However, I think many underestimates this lens because it’s the slowest in the series. In fact I think it can match many faster lenses I’ve tried.

Images

Bokeh example

Long exposure on water

Tree and branch

Autumn tree

Ice with bokeh

Post your Yashica ML 50mm/2 images on YashicaForum.com :)

Pros

+ Sharp, like most wide and normal ML-lenses I’ve tried.
+ Good bokeh, similar to some expensive russian lenses.
+ Saturated colours.

Cons

- Not the fastest 50mm lens, but f2 is often enough.
- Aperture ring very close mount (and therefore camerabody).

Reading & images
On pbase
My flickr-set

• Review of Asahi Super-Takumar 135mm/3.5 M42-lens
• Review of Pentax Super Takumar 35mm/3.5
• Review of Yashica MC Zoom 35-70mm/3.5-4.5
• Review of Asahi S-M-C Takumar 55mm/1.8
• Review of Auto Yashinon-DX 50mm/1.7 m42-lens

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 ;)

Side of the lens

The lens
The Tele-Tokina 105mm/2.8 seems to be a bit rare, at least there is not much information on the Internet. Only I could find was for other focal-lengths. It’s an Adapt-all lens, here with M42-mount on. To mount it on my EOS I also need a M42->EOS adapter (it sounds a bit more complicated then it is).

Back and mount of the lens

It feels like small and slender, not bigger then some of my 50mm lenses. 10 blades aperture. The aperture setting is a preset, which runs very smooth. The focus is a bit stiff, which can be a problem as there are 2 threaded mounts (the Adaptall -> M42 and M42 -> EOS) that can come off. Sadly the 49mm filtermount is a bit danged, but it still takes filters and don’t seem to effect function at all.

Filtermount

I’m guessing that this is single-coated, which I like actually. I know, it sounds weird, but all my single coated lenses are very good.

Results
I think it’s quite sharp. The bokeh and flares is round and soft, which I like. I’m very pleasently surprised by this lens. Nice colours, though it was hard to judge that part since I tested the lens in swedish autumn, which is very colourfull in it self.

Images
Images photographed mostly during the swedish autumn in september 2008.

Mushroom

Portrait of my wife and duaghter

Image in to the sun

Autumn road

Pros

• Sharp, even at large aperture
• Nice, soft bokeh
• Small and nice shape
• Single coating – if you like me have good experience with single coated lenses.

Cons

• The focus is a bit stiff, which sometimes loosens the 2 threaded mounts. Bloody annoying.
• Singe coating – if you hold to the beliefe that multi coating is better.

Reading
I haven’t found much info on this at all, please give me tips if you know any.

• Review of Asahi S-M-C Takumar 55mm/1.8
• Review of Pentax Super Takumar 35mm/3.5
• Review of Yashica ML 50mm/2
• Review of Auto Yashinon-DX 50mm/1.7 m42-lens
• Review of Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar 135mm/3.5 Zebra

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!

Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar 135mm/3.5 Zebra, the lens
The mount on this lens is M42 screwmount (could be version with other mounts too). That means you need a adapter to make your modern DSLR take M42-lenses. These adapters are often sold cheap on ebay and well-stocked camerashops.

CZJ Sonnar 135mm/3.5 from the side

The focal length when this lens is mounted on my Canon EOS 350D is 215mm. The image is incredible clear and sharp, which makes it easy to focus. Manual focusing is fast and easy, specially compared to my Pentacon Electric 135mm/2.8 where you have to turn, turn, turn the focusring for ages (that slow focus can also come in handy some times though).

The extensionrings included in the purchase

This version of the lens is called “zebra” because of it’s striped rings. It is a singlecoated lens that was manufactured 1967-70 according to serial number (see links at the end of article for sources). The purpose of coating is to reduce reflections from lenses surface. Old lenses are often singlecoated, in the 70′s multicoating came in use. However, there is nothing that says a singlecoated in different situations can be better then a multicoated one. So don’t make the assumption multicoat-lenses are better (even if that often is true).

asu Jena S 135mm/3,5 m42 from the back

The lens has an aperturepin that’s probably for some autofunction. It comes with a external button to use in conjunction with the pin. You need to press the pin or button to make the aperture close (otherwise it’s wideopen all the time). If your adapter or camera doesn’t press on the pin, it takes som training to manually press the external button, while your focusing and pressing the exposurebutton on the camera. When you get the hang of it, it’s actually a good function that makes focusing easier.

Aperture pin and button

Images
As you might have noticed from my previous reviews, I don’t do the kind of test where you make aperture diagrams and big images, 100% crops etc. I simply use the lens a while, in real life. I see no reason to test lenses in another way then I would use it in real work – thats where they have to prove themselfs. Images has been processed from RAW, scaled and sharpened.

These images was shot on different occasions form midsummer to present date (july 2008). The motifs are nature around swedish city of Örebro, some cityshots and a portrait of my sister-in-law when visiting the train station.

Portrait of my sister in law

Butterflies

Public art with clothes

Morning at the river with boat

My opinion on this lens
You might already have guessed – I really like this lens! It has become my favorite since I bought it. Colours, sharpness, feel – all good.

Pros

• Sharp
• Good colours
• Nice bokeh
• Fast and easy manual focusing with clear image.
• Just feels like magic.

Cons

• The aperturepin/button, but the more I use it the more I think its a usable feature.
• Single coating. It ain’t that bad actually, this lens has been said to outgun the multicoated version.

History
The company Zeiss is alive today, in two parts created after the war. If you want to know more about them you can read up on their homepage or on the WikiPedia article. Lenses from Carl Zeiss are pretty much always of good quality.

Links

• Year by Serial

• Review of Pentacon Electric 135mm f2.8 M42
• 5 reasons I love manual lenses
• Review of Auto Yashinon-DX 50mm/1.7 m42-lens
• Review of Pentacon Auto 29mm / 2.8 m42
• Review of Asahi S-M-C Takumar 55mm/1.8