[wigwamtrout]

Takumar Macro 50 4.0

In the last week of October, I was able to visit Big Bend National Park. I guided a friend up a mountain, his first big, strenuous hike. He came within about 20 feet of a momma bear and three cubs coming down the trail in the
evening. What an excitement that was for him. Neither of us saw a mountain lion during our stay, but they are sighted often enough. What a beautiful place, and this year, all of the rains have turned the scenery into the greenest and most vivid purple riot of colors one can imagine. Absolutely stunning. Between the two of us, we had six camera systems (or maybe seven, ha), all the latest and greatest in aps-c and full frame 35mm digital photography. The shooting was fun and I learned a lot. One thing I learned is that next time I go to Big Bend, I'm mounting the Takumar Macro 50 4 on the old Canon 50D to do some serious shooting. I shot so many other cameras and lenses in Big Bend that that lens was neglected until we were leaving the park. I fortunately took a series of landscapes on the way out and all the way back to civilization, some just as we left the park, and many at highway speeds (the slight blur in the lower right hand corner is highway induced, or, maybe I was shooting at f8 and did not have enough depth of field). I really enjoyed what I saw from the old macro when I opened the files (I chose the most prosaic shot I could find for showing off the quality, character of this lens). I especially liked the fact that I opened them after looking at a series of high mountain photos taken with a sonnar design screwmount, the Jupiter 37AM 135 3.5. There is a world of difference from the macro, a tessar design, and the 135 sonnar. Both of these lenses provide plenty of quality and character! I know it is a Takumar thread, but those who shoot this old tessar owe it to themselves to side by side a series of shots from the two lens designs, preferably a series that exploits their strengths. I'll leave any specific description of the peculiar character of these two styles of lens to others. But I will say in a single sentence, the grandiose spacious smooth airy sonnar shots and the flat painterly disciplined colorful and contrasty tessar shots will bring home great images from a place like Big Bend. You need both looks, styles to catch the quality of the earth and atmosphere, especially mountain and vast desert scenery. I included the same shot twice here from the macro, one being an unedited jpeg from the Canon camera set to faithful, the least aggressive, plain setting for in camera jpeg (yes, I do prefer to work from a RAW file and so on, but just not right now). The other is a lightly edited version of the same jpeg in LR. I've always found that this lens makes images that can get by without processing, and when I say get by, sometimes images are really stunning without any edit. If touchup is applied, it only needs to be ever so subtle. I probably overdid the edited shot, but I added no saturation or tweaked any colors, just a little sharpening and a little tone curve to work the ends of the histogram out almost to the edges. I shot pentax M's on a K-3 in the park, and with the AA filter off in the K-3, pictures look a degree sharper, and with a CP filter, control of color and contrast is easy. The Ms did very well on the K-3. I think with that camera, editing for sharpness in general will be almost unnecessary with this old M42 macro. I like that thought. I did not shoot the macro on the K-3. The macro resolves a lot of detail, and you can zoom in quite a lot with great satisfaction if you like doing that kind of thing. It retains almost Zeiss like detail (I did use a Zeiss wide angle in the park and am enjoying deeply zooming in for fun). The Takumar lens will produce fairly big prints from the 15 megapixel Canon camera, and I suspect it will be superb on the K-3 since it shows superior qualities of resolution over the Ms. Yeh, it really does. I found that the ST 35 3.5 produced beautiful shots in the park even though several times I shot a series of shots wide open because I accidently moved the A and M switch to the wrong position. I've managed to do that with the old 20 4.5 a few times also. You sure can get some interesting surprises when you make that mistake. The SMCT 20 held its own alongside the three other very fine wide angle lenses I was able to use. Actually, it held its own against more wides than that since we shot crop and ff systems, all with top notch wide angle lens options. I just wasn't personally able to shoot all of them by a long shot. The old 20 sometimes needs some PP which is fine with me since its quality is unique and the lens is worth some time at the computer.
I was not able to use some of my favorite Takumars this time around (8 element 50, some auto taks, and 200 3.5 especially), but there will be a next time to try those out in the heavenly environment of Big Bend. I don't see a necessity for ridding myself of these great lenses while having access to, or owning the latest gear. This Takumar stuff can't quite be replaced!

One more thought. I'm not so certain that full frame is really so necessary at all for getting higher quality in digital. Of course, I'd like to be the first to try out my old Pentax film lenses on a Pentax FF camera, ha!

---------- Post added 11-05-15 at 07:59 PM ----------

Autumn leaves, K-5 II with Super-Takumar 1.4/50mm (8-element) at f/2. Nice colours and a lovely combination of sharpness where it's supposed to be with off-center softness/glow in my mind. A very windy day, so a bit of trial and error.

Very fine. Love that 8 element lens.

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[jwc77]

A couple with my newer to me SMC Takumar 135 2.5...

[jwc77]

And another...

[Dartmoor Dave]

Towards Merrivale late this afternoon with the SMC 105mm. I think I need to reset the infinity stop on this lens.

[wtlwdwgn]

It looks pretty good from here.

[Dartmoor Dave]

The buildings and trees on the horizon are a mile away so should be sharp with the lens at infinity, but they are definitely soft in the original before sharpening. I'll do some more testing if we ever get a sunny day around here to check if the lens is actually hitting infinity or not. This was a grab shot in the rain, so the slightly missed focus could just be a meatware failure on my part.

[tromboads]

Was the 105 wide open? That is about what I would expect from mine wide open. "shrugs"

[Dartmoor Dave]

It was shot at f/5.6 at 1/125 at ISO100. I've done a couple of indoor test shots today and the lens is sharp enough for me at that aperture, so I think it's just a case of tweaking the infinity focus stop. Not a big deal.

The big deal is waiting for the lousy Dartmoor winter weather to clear up enough so that I can actually see anything far enough away to use as an infinity target. Visibility has been about thirty feet for most of the past week.

[tromboads]

ah.

:P well yes that would put a kink in your measurements :P

[turkiye2turkiye]

Autumn photos,Super-Takumar 50mm wideopen

[dcpropilot]

Playing with my new Super Takumar 50 1.4

[BobKG]

Beware! Old manalert! Thought I would come out of the woodwork and get involved in theforum.

My Spotmatic, from 1968, is still in great working conditionwith its original Super Takumar 50mm f1.4. Also have a Super Takumar 28mm f3.5, 35mm f3.5 and 135 mm f2.5, all fromthe early 1970's. A few years ago was inthe local camera shop and succumb to a Takumar 500mm f4.5. Shortly after that I moved to digital with aused K200D and last year felt confident enough to purchase the K-3. Have been using the Takumars with the digitalcameras with some success. Thought youmight enjoy some of these pictures.

Photo #1. K200D, Super Takumar 50mm f1.4 - some cropping

And since we all like to take pictures of cats:

Photo #2. K-3, Super Takumar 135 mm f2.5 No crop.
Photo #3. K-3, Takumar 500mm f4.5. No crop. Needless to say, could not shoot this onewith the 28mm lens. Also, the 500mmbeast was on my old Manfrotto 3021 tripod (3047 head) , which is the onlytripod I have strong enough to hold this lens. However, the combination of the 500mm lens and Manfrotto tripod requiredminor back surgery.

[Mike Bokeh]

Those tiger shots are great, BobKG.

I, too, used a Bogen 3047 head for years, but a few years back switched to a ball head, and love it.

Welcome to Pentaxforums.

Hope to see more of your work.

Mike

[turkiye2turkiye]

K5IIs + Takumar 50mm

f2.8



f1.4



f1.4

[manntax]

You are sure the last two shots are wide open with takumar at 1.4 ? Looks like your aperture might be faulty then because I clearly can see some slightly hexagonal shapes in some of the highlights Check second photo in the bottom-left corner , behind branches. These highlights should be perfectly round , maybe elliptical but not hexagonal. Also the bokeh in both photos is somehow not smooth - not as I experience takumar wide open. Sometime despite having the aperture ring set on F1.4 your aperture blades could still be slightly stopped down. I recall one or two lenses that once I saw along my journey with used vintage lenses , that had similar issue.

K5IIs + Takumar 50mm

f2.8



f1.4



f1.4