I had some problem with the front cover and hood on my Asahi Super-Takumar 135mm/3.5 m42-lens. The front “hull” or what you might call it, wobbled… including the filterthreads and the hood. Didn’t affect the imageproperties of the lens (the glass didn’t move) but annoying to use.

This turned out to be easy…

1. Unscrew the ring where the lensname is printed. That’s just a ring screwed down in the filterthreads. Take a round object with smaller diameter then the 49mm filterthreads, cover it with a rubberglove or something that’s soft but has friction. Press down and unscrew the name-ring.
2. The front hull of the lens is atteched with three small screws. Tighten the small screws you see down between the hull and the lenses glass.
3. Reattach the name-ring. Done!

Here some pictures I took while doing this:

Read the full article "Fixing a Super-Takumar 135mm…" »

Some time of year I just can’t stay away from certain motifs. Leafs in the autumn. Summer morning light. Flowers in the spring. Flowing water. Fog. Some obsessions ;) Well, here’s a flower – hope you don’t get tired. I guess after the winter here it’s so good to see the nature awaken.

More anemone hepatica

Shot with Super-Takumar 28mm/3.5 or Yashinon-DX 50mm/1.7 with some ring.

Did I bring the Asahi Super-Takumar 28mm/3.5 close enough? The kidneywort flower, Anemone hepatica, was touching the lens ;) More flowers to come, it’s that time of year…

Hepatica nobilis

This is the time of springflowers in Sweden. Anemone hepatica (“blåsippa”) and Anemone nemorosa (“vitsippa”) is two common ones that covers the ground here. I discovered that the Super-Takumar 28mm/3.5 with different lengths of macrorings/extenders makes for a good tool shooting pictures of flora. Wideangle close to the flowers gives an interesting field of view to play with. This was made in the spring, and I have more coming…

Kidneywort

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

Thinking of selling my Super-Takumar 105mm/2.8, but I wanted to give it some photography-time in the woods first and shot this leg of ice the other day. The changing weather between cold and “warm” (well, around 0°C is warm) make some nice iceformations.

Super-Takumar 105mm/2.8 with leg of ice

This sunflower was made with Asahi Super-Takumar 28mm/3.5 and now I got it in as stockphoto at Fotolia. It interesting in two ways, first of all I don’t think I’m normally a stockphoto guy. Dark, blurry nature images don’t make good stockphoto ;) I then it’s made with an old manual M42-lens. This 28mm-lens is good but if you get one try to look up serialnumbers first and get a late made one as it can be a big difference in quality.

Sunflower against blue sky

So if you want to buy my Super-Takumar sunflower as stockphoto, spend a dollar at Fotolia :)

Some shots of Bohemian waxwings (Bombycilla garrulus), all made with Asahi Opt.Co. Super-Takumar 135mm/3.5 m42 on Canon EOS 350D, and then cropped.

100% Crop

100% crop, Bohemian waxwing with bokeh

50% crop

50% crop, Bohemian waxwing sharp

50% crop

50% crop, Bohemian waxwing

The other day I was out for a walk with my wife and duaghter. I had some good experiences with the Super-Takumar 135mm/3.5 making portraits and birdshots. Here are a couple of portraits converted to black and white in Photoshop (with Channel-mixer).

Portrait of Sara, my wife

Portait of my wife Sara