Forum Member Registered: February, 2010 Location: Cincinnati Posts: 79 | |
Pentaxian Registered: February, 2009 Location: Arizona Posts: 1,272
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| | Review Date: March 6, 2012 | Recommended
| Rating: N/A |
| Pros: | Focusing System | | Cons: | Weight | |
This post is informational since I don't own this rare lens.
With its 8 inch diameter front element and 39 lb weight, this lens is gargantuan. It was first produced in 1969 and went unchanged optically for its entire run. With its f/4 speed and the weight that this required, it became a limited use lens. It was just too heavy for most uses. It was superseded by a slower and lighter 800mm (EDIF). The 800Takumar was built as a big brother to the 600Takumar. Both have outer bay mounting; both use geared focusing and both have similar optical designs and physical appearance. Both have a similar lens hood. Also, both use stop down metering and have huge diaphragms. The speed range between the two is identical, F/4 to F/45.
The 800 Takumar uses a 6 element optical design like the 600, however the cross sections are quite different. The 800 uses a quadruplet up front, probably with the intention of correcting 4 colors, as opposed to the triplet up front in the 600. The rear group in the 800 consists of only 2 elements, a double concave negative and a plano convex positive element. No low dispersion glass was used in the 800; it used conventional glass. Since the 600mm had chromatic aberration issues, I would guess that the 800 does as well. They were designed in the same era. At 800mm, it is extremely difficult to control colors well enough to prevent fringing. This lens would have to be corrected for 5 colors (violet, blue, green, yellow and red) to not fringe using conventional glass. I am very doubtful that this was done. Stopping down would be the only solution to color fringing. The 800 EDIF avoids this problem because it doesn't allow the colors to separate in the first place.
The 800 has a rear filter bay like the 600. A filter holder is screwed into the back of the lens and a filter is screwed into that. The 800 also allows the camera body to be rotated for vertical shooting (just like the 600). Using a rear polarizing filter on any outer bay lens is a royal pain!
In the 1996 to 1998 time frame, this lens sold for $7300 new. Today it is only available on the used market but is rare. Used copies are generally in the $2600 to $4000 range.
Due to its large diameter front element, this lens gets some attention from Astronomers. I'm betting that chromatic aberration will negatively affect any wide open viewing/shooting.
There were very few of these lenses produced by Pentax as evidenced by how few are seen on the used market today.
It is well known by Pentax big glass shooters that the new version, the 800 EDIF outperforms the older Takumar. Plus, the new version is 1/3 the weight but at a much higher cost.
The production of the two 800's ran concurrently for a number of years (approximately 15).
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