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Forum: Lens Clubs
04-27-2011, 02:29 PM
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That's a great shot. The SMC Tak 55/1.8 is a great lens.
I've not been on this forum for a while, so I may as well start my comeback with a recent shot with my SMC Tak 55/1.8 @f4 (king cups in the sun)
I've just won a preset Takumar 200/3.5 on eBay, so I am rather excited about what I can do with it once it turns up. It looks like it will be a bit of a monster.
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Forum: Lens Clubs
07-07-2010, 10:48 AM
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::sigh:: I was brought up near this chap's birthplace. Everyone in the area worked for "the Austin". Austin made cars there from 1905 to 2005. When the company went bankrupt in 2005 the factory was sold to the Nanjing Motor Co who literally moved the factory to Nanjing. The remainder was demolished and now, this poor mini's birthplace no longer exists. (The BMW Mini is made in the old Morris works in Cowley, Oxford.)
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Forum: Lens Clubs
06-13-2010, 12:03 PM
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Yeah. I have cleaned fungus off several lenses and I have just cleaned the SMC Tak 55/2 from my last post. I use methanol and the elements are now fungus free. (A 55/2 is not worth much so I won't sell it - if I sell a camera I may provide this lens as a "body cap".)
Sure. The fungus-free lens has a name plate that moves easily, but I haven't been able to shift the name plate on the fungus lens :( I need to get some rubber gloves and have another try. As you say, the process is straight forward. The SMC Tak 55/2 had fungus behind the front element which was easy to clean once I had managed to get the metal ring holding it in place to shift (which took a quite a bit of brute force). It also had fungus in the rear element group but that was easier to dismantle.
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Forum: Lens Clubs
06-13-2010, 05:20 AM
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I have a collection of Takumars, I love the ones I have.
I recently bought two Auto Takumar 55/2.2 both "has no fungus". I bought two because I messed up - I forgot that I had bought the first when I bid for the second. No matter, they are very cheap lenses (I got one for £7 the other for £11). I believe that the vendors honestly thought that there was no fungus.
When I got the lenses I looked at them carefully and saw no fungus myself. I have bought lenses before with fungus and know what it looks like (see below for a horrible infection). After I got them, I wanted to choose between these two lenses, keep the best one and sell the other one.
Anyway, today I was at a lose end and I shone a very bright LED flashlight through the lenses and used a desktop magnifying lens (one of those on an arm with a light) to inspect what I could see. First, you have to be careful doing this, because it can dazzle you! Second, when you get the angle right, the light will show various elements within the lens.
I found that the first lens I had bought did have fungus on one internal element. Just a bit, but it was there. The other lens did not have fungus as far as I could see, but I noticed some very light scratches on the front element. Swings and roundabouts. Incidentally, these defects do not show up on images I have taken using the lenses. I have one lens that is (as far as I can tell) fungus-free, and the other has some minor fungus infection (it is older than me! and dates from around 1961, of course there will be a good chance that it may has fungus).
Then I did the same inspection with some of my other cherished Takumars, and found that my Super Takumar 105/2.8 has a few whispy fungus on an inner element. I hadn't noticed this before, and frankly I do not care.
So my message to you is this:
1) every lens has some fungus internally and you can never have a lens that is fungus free
2) most fungus will have zero effect on the images taken with the lens
3) most fungus will not spread to your other lenses - DO NOT WORRY!
4) a 40 year old lens is bound to have fungus somewhere, and you will not normally see this
5) let me reiterate this - most people do not know that their lenses have fungus, and will get wonderful images even with fungus
I will not re-sell the Auto Tak 55/2.2 that has fungus. There is no point because it is so cheap that I will not benefit from re-selling, and equally so, there is no point me making an issue with the vendor who I think was honest about their view. My reason for considering reselling was simply to give someone else the benefit of owning a wonderful lens.
Just for the record, here is a lens with a serious fungus infection. (SMC Takumar 55/2) I knew this was the case when I bought it (I wanted the Spotmatic it was attached to), because the infection was so obvious. When I get the time, I will take some photographs of the Auto-Tak with fungus and show how the vendor thought it was fungus-free and how I found it was not. But for now, here's an obvious example.
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Forum: Lens Clubs
06-12-2010, 01:18 PM
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Ah, in that case they are owned by the Queen. The female is owned by Queen Elizabeth II, and the male by Queen Elizabeth I. :D
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Forum: Lens Clubs
06-08-2010, 07:43 AM
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A recent purchase Auto Takumar 55/2.2 taken at f2.2. This lens is very sharp fully open and the background bokeh is nice and smooth.
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Forum: Lens Clubs
05-07-2010, 12:01 PM
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LOL! Yeah, and we wear our pants under our trousers and pedestrians walk on the pavement. I won't go into what fanny means... :eek:
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Forum: Lens Clubs
05-06-2010, 11:32 AM
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I've not posted for a while.
Last month I did some street photography on a march though London. It's been 20 years since I last went on a march and I forgot how colourful they are!
SMC Tak 55/1.8
SMC Tak 55/1.8
SMC Tak 55/1.8
SMC Tak 55/1.8
Super Tak 105/2.8
Super Tak 105/2.8
Super Tak 105/2.8
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Forum: Lens Clubs
11-16-2009, 03:14 PM
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I haven't posted in a while.
This is with a Super Takumar 150/4 @ f8 with 12mm of extension tubes and AF280T held off camera.
I originally tried to use my Super Tak 105/2.8 (+12mm) but the results weren't too good. I think the results from the 150/4 are quite good, even though it is a compact, relatively slow lens.
Richard
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Forum: Lens Clubs
10-22-2009, 02:42 PM
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LOL Nass. Your first problem is finding the Japanese ladies in England. I used to work in Oxford and the city was a favourite of Japanese tourists, so I guess you should head there. As to the "dirty old man" part, well wear a fedora with a big piece of paper tucked under the hat band saying "Press". Even if it doesn't convince anyone, it would be an amusing talking point that will make you appear harmless.
However, I am not sure if the boys in blue would accept that as a proof that you are not a terrorist. Apparently (from other sites) it seems that the best course of action if you are approached by the police is to be polite and keep your cool. But whatever you do, do not give your name nor show any ID. The police have to suspect you of committing a crime before they are legally allowed to obtain your name (and they have to tell you what crime they suspect you of committing). If you do give your name then they will make a Police National Computer check and even if it comes back negative the check will be recorded, which may affect any Criminal Records Bureau checks made in the future.
Richard
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Forum: Lens Clubs
09-15-2009, 05:02 AM
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Super Takumar 105/2.8. The Royal Shakespeare Theatre, the construction continues. The original 20s Art Deco building is on the left.
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Forum: Lens Clubs
09-05-2009, 08:24 AM
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My daughter playes the uke, but doesn't like to perform in front of other people, so I only get to hear her playing through her bedroom door. Anyway, here's my grandmother's mandolin, German made, but she bought it in Shanghai in the 30s. Super Takumar 55/1.8 early version, so it is the successor to the Auto-Tak Mike used.
Richard
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Forum: Lens Clubs
09-05-2009, 06:18 AM
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You should check out the Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain, their rendition of "Anarchy in the UK" is wonderful ;-)
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Forum: Lens Clubs
09-05-2009, 03:27 AM
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Super Takumar 28/3.5. This is the early version (58mm filter with a f22 smallest aperture). I had to crop it a tad because of vignetting from the hood I was using.
Richard
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Forum: Lens Clubs
09-02-2009, 02:53 PM
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Thanks. The Super-Tak 105/2,8 is a nice lens. Here's another this time with 12mm of extension tube.
Richard
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Forum: Lens Clubs
08-31-2009, 09:50 AM
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More from my Super Takumar 105/2.8, this time with 12mm extension tube to get a bit closer. (All at ISO 800, because I forgot I had changed the ISO setting.)
Richard
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Forum: Lens Clubs
08-29-2009, 02:39 PM
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Super Takumar 28/3.5. This is the early 58mm filter version. The sky was over exposed so I've desaturated it and the rest of the background in post processing.
Richard
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Forum: Lens Clubs
08-28-2009, 09:38 AM
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This came in the post this morning:
Super Takumar 105/2.8 taken with smc Pentax-M Macro 50/4 @f5.6. The lens came with a rather large end cap that was advertised as being damaged and is not much use to me (Yashica TL Electro). But the lens is in good shape :)
I've been wanting to get one of these for quite a while after seeing at the excellent images from Mr Cash :)
Here's a couple of test shots both at f4.
I think I am going to enjoy this lens.
Richard
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Forum: Lens Clubs
08-18-2009, 01:39 PM
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Hi Andreas.
Those are really great photos, I must try some portraits with mine. The butterfly photo was handheld, by the way - those critters move around too much to use a tripod!
Richard
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Forum: Lens Clubs
08-18-2009, 03:54 AM
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That's a good set. Here's a recent one taken with 8mm extension tubes to get me about 1m away from the subject, I have cropped this to about 2/3 the original.
Super takumar 150/4 @f11. The DOF is quite difficult to get right.
Richard
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Forum: Lens Clubs
08-17-2009, 04:15 AM
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Just got this in the post. It does not seem like a popular lens by the fact that I got it cheap (£15) and that few people post photos. It is only slightly longer than the 135/3.5. The minimum focus is 1.8m. This is a first test at f5.6 and ISO800 (it is an overcast day today).
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Forum: Lens Clubs
08-10-2009, 01:12 PM
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Andreas, do you mean like this:
S-M-C Takumar 200/4
Richard
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Forum: Lens Clubs
08-07-2009, 11:44 AM
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Super Takumar 55/1.8 (early version with the aperture ring the opposite way). This is just playing with light, wide open, the last rays of the afternoon hitting some mushrooms in the garden. I thought the flare gave the mushroom a "trippy" look:
The lens gives great colours.
Richard
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Forum: Lens Clubs
08-05-2009, 01:49 PM
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Nice shots!
Yes, RAW is a dump from the sensor (via the amp and a2d but no other processing). However, the RAW file is a TIFF file which means that it contains "tagged" information. This means that each file is a bit like a disk with named "folders" containing data, and such tagged information includes EXIF and proprietary Pentax stuff. So the white balance you set on the camera will be in the RAW file but not applied to the image. (One other part of the RAW file is the low res JPEG that you see when you preview the image on the back screen of the camera. I haven't checked, but I guess that WB will be applied to that image. But the raw data is not altered.)
Your post processing app can read this white balance information and apply it (and most will, as a first try) but you have the ability of changing the white balance settings used. Note that whatever values you use, the RAW data is always there, so if you get it wrong, just open the RAW file again and use some other white balance value.
Here I should refer you to Mike Cash's tagline about holy users of Takumars! But yes, Takumars are wonderful lenses.
Richard
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Forum: Lens Clubs
08-04-2009, 02:32 AM
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I would echo what the others have said about shooting in RAW and doing the white balance post process. However, if you want the camera to do it, then it is straight forward.
1) Press Fn
2) Press the left arrow key to get to the white balance menu
3) Either select a setting according to your situation or
4) Select the bottom option "White Balance Manual"
5) Press the right arrow button.
6) Now put a piece of white paper in the scene, focus on it and take a shot. The camera will adjust the settings so that the white paper appears white.
Richard
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