Originally posted by kcobain1992 SMC Takumar 200mm f/4, shot between f/5.8 and f/8. I have bought this lens in August, found out it had fungus and since I had absolutely no money left, decided to clean it myself. Turned out to be a 2-month long experience, and I didn't reassemble it perfectly (can still spot some dust between elements), but I really learned a lot about lens care.
I decided to reply after I saw the response to this which also mentioned your 50/1.4 question.
Your 50/1.4 image looks good at full frame, and could be just a matter of exact focus, which is hard to see in the view finder. Alternatively, one of the groups might not have been nipped up firm on reassembly, or there could be an issue with the infinity setting on the focus ring. Others give instructions for how to fix that.
I had to open my 55/2 (similar construction to the 50/1.4) and judged it to be well engineered - almost impossible to reassemble wrongly, except for the focus ring setting (which I did not need to touch).
I have the SMC 200, which I had to repair. I put a post about the reflection absorbing tube near the back end, including an image of what happens when it falls out. The dust inside is likely only to impact images into the light - increasing flare like effects and possibly reducing contrast, but not visible specific defects in images, since a lens cannot focus on its internal surfaces.
I tried taking image of the moon last night with the 200, but had it at f4 and set the Av exposure on -2.0. The result was not sharable.
In my opinion the nicest STak to use is the 135/3.5 (after using 6 - including the SMC 200 and ATak 35/3.5.) I share an image of a speaker at a conference under available light (spotlights) in a large dark hall.
STak135@3.5, 1/10sec, ISO1600. Only cropped, no other processing, K100SD.
Last edited by tim60; 12-31-2011 at 03:09 PM.