| Author: | | New Member Registered: November, 2007 Location: Greece Posts: 6 | | Review Date: January 2, 2021 | Recommended | Price: $800.00
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | The best wide angel lens ever | | Cons: | none | | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 10
Bokeh: 7
Handling: 7
Value: 10
Camera Used: Pentax K1
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I acquired it in 1979 and I consider it to be the best purchase I have ever made. Perfect lens. I have been using it continuously for 41 years and it is in excellent condition. I love this lens.
 | | | | | | | New Member Registered: August, 2019 Posts: 2 | | Review Date: October 1, 2019 | Recommended | Price: $1,380.00
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | Takumar build quality. Superb handling. Great color rendition. 111° field of view. | | Cons: | Prone to flare but I'd say it is a pro! A bit soft around the edge at f3,5 | | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 9
Bokeh: 10
Handling: 10
Value: 10
Camera Used: Sony a7iii
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Fantastic lens with a full frame sensor. I have the aspherical version in mint condition. Not an easy lens to get. The build quality is very good. It is rugged and has this nice takumar feel when in your hand. It has builtin filters. Unique lens. I would definitely recommend this lens.
Shot at f3.5. Distance to subject: approx 30 cm
Crop f3.5
 | | | | | New Member Registered: June, 2016 Location: Almelo, The Netherlands Posts: 3
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: May 26, 2018 | Recommended | Price: $800.00
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | Extreme wide, superb build and handling, excellent sharpness, low distortion, great color rendition, good contrast, almost no CA | | Cons: | A little soft in extreme edges, flareing, but sometimes really nice ones | | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 10
Bokeh: 9
Handling: 10
Value: 10
Camera Used: Canon 5D mkII
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As a landscape-photographer the SMC Takumar 15mm f/3.5 Aspherical is great; extreme wide, excellent color-rendition and good contrast. Every landscape comes a live with a magical 3D effect that takes you in to the photograph. You can feel the well build Takumar quality when useing this lens, focusthrow and aperture setting. The build in filters are usefull, Skylight and UV for landscape and Yellow Y2 for black/white photography, Orange filter never used.
This lens is also usefull for astro-photography and night-photography, has a little coma in the corners but not disturbing. At f/3.5 it is still very sharp, in the corners a little soft and vignetting (easy to correct).
I really love this lens in every aspect; optically, build (even with full metal front-lenscap) , use/handeling.
 | | | | | Senior Member Registered: May, 2013 Posts: 122 | | Review Date: January 7, 2017 | Recommended | Price: $1,000.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Low distortion | | Cons: | price | | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 10
Bokeh: 8
Handling: 10
Value: 9
Camera Used: sony a7r,Pentax film
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Extreme, wide angle. Built in metal lens for the whole life. Comes with very useful inner filters, very sharp even at 3.5 and excellent in f8 beautiful colors
And little distortion. Anyone who has the chance to get their hands on her will be lucky.
My copy and with special element.
https://www.pentaxforums.com/gallery/images/60656/1_14370201_1773395219583578...73361726_n.jpg | | | | | | | Senior Member Registered: April, 2010 Location: New Mexico Posts: 179
3 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: February 18, 2016 | Recommended | Price: $2,000.00
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | Color, focus, and coating | | Cons: | Hard to clean and take apart. | | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 10
Bokeh: 10
Handling: 9
Value: 10
Camera Used: BMCC, Sony A7SII
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Well first off let me just say how I do not use takumar glass for photography. I fell in love with them when I started doing Timelapses. Well over the years I use them for Stereoscopics, timelapse, filming, video, etc. I love these lenses! I've shot them side by side with cinema glass ten times more expensive and they can hold their own. I own about 60 lenses and my collection is ever growing. However, out of those lenses only a handful I turn to when I need the great quality I am looking for or my clients expect. The 15mm 3.5 S-M-C is the lens that holds up the best against other brands like Super speeds, Cookes etc. Anyways Its focus throw is nice for a super wide angle, the color is my Favorite. When applying a rec 709 its almost too colorful because something about the old coatings just make the color pop and give it a nice 3D effect.
I have the same lens everyone one does, I don't know if that 2nd model even exists because I've never seen it. I actually have two of these lenses. The first one I got had the smallest of small scratches on the front element and I am a perfectionist so I got another one that was in great condition. There is some dust inside the front element and I could not figure out how to get those two elements apart to fix. Maybe ill try to send it off somewhere. Anyways enough talking here is a video I shot with it and the proof is in that.
https://vimeo.com/155453932 | | | | | Veteran Member Registered: August, 2010 Location: Tatarstan, Russia Posts: 307
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: May 23, 2015 | Recommended | Price: $1,500.00
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | Very sharp, beauty colors, built quality and few distortion | | Cons: | Light reflections | | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 8
Bokeh: 8
Handling: 10
Value: 10
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I think it is best Pentax lens in history.
Very rare and hard to find. very expensive but fantastic!
Carl Zeiss design and Pentax glasses.
Very sharp for old lens.
I do not regret the purchase, and ready to recommend a lens.
 | | | | | Site Supporter Registered: December, 2006 Location: Suburban Detroit, MI, USA Posts: 238
2 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: February 15, 2013 | Recommended | Price: $931.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Very solidly built; surprisingly sharp (almost as good as DA15/4). | | Cons: | Weaker edge performance, moderate contrast; large and heavy; does not perform as well on digital as on film. | | Sharpness: 9
Aberrations: 9
Bokeh: 8
Handling: 9
Value: 8
Camera Used: K-5 IIs
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I have the aspherical element version. This was a landmark lens in the early days of Pentax, a state -of-the-art ultrawide design for its time. It is surprisingly sharp in the center although the edges are weaker and overall contrast is only moderate. My copy of the SMC Tak is a better performer than my SMC-K and SMC-A versions, perhaps due to the aspherical element which was replaced with a less-expensive spherical element in the later versions. It resembles the Carl Zeiss Distagon 15/3.5 in its lens plan and is reputed to have been co-designed with Zeiss.
This is a brute of a lens; heavy and rather large, and users of digital cameras would be better served with the modern DA 15mm f4 Limited, which offers slightly better all-round performance and is much lighter and more compact. Build quality is exceptional, although the built-in hood doesn't offer a lot of flare protection. The 4 built-in filters are useful when shooting film but less so on digital.
Altogether, this is a classic which will spend most of its time in my collection rather than on my cameras.
| | | | | Pentaxian Registered: July, 2010 Location: Clermont-Ferrand, France Posts: 336
2 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: May 22, 2011 | Recommended | Price: $1,360.00
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | 111° viewing angle, built in filter, built quality, beautiful, Zeiss design | | Cons: | Light reflections (some sort of flare without contrast loss) | |
Extreme wide angle lens, the widest M42 lens available (apart fish eyes of course). It shares its optical formula with the Zeiss Distagon 15/3.5. A real killer when used on a 24x36 camera (I use it on my Canon 5D, but also used it on Spotmatics when I did not have the 5D), it really deserves a FF sensor. It is said that there are non ashperical versions : I actually never saw a non ashperical Takumar lens on ~10 seen lenses.
Great color rendition with beautiful blues and greens when stopped at f/8 - still acceptable at f/3.5. Excellent sharpness in the center, you'll need to stop it down to get an excellent overall sharpness. The bokeh is not that bad for an extreme wide angle lens (yes, even at 15mm f/3.5, you can get some bokeh). The built in filter are very useful when used on B&W film, even if I would like to have a red filter - orange is not enough radical), and the built quality is at a very high level. These 35 years old lenses work as they would came directly from the factory, I would not bet that we will be able to say the same for the Samyang 14/2.8 in 35 years. The main drawback of this lens (except from its stellar price - it is more rare than the K mount version) is its falre resistance that could be improved : there is not significant contrast loss but light reflections are often visible if you do not handle sun in the picture well.
Many samples with aspherical versions : http://kajiwara.weebly.com/takumar-1535.html | | | | | New Member Registered: October, 2008 Location: Paris Posts: 1
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: December 1, 2009 | Recommended | Price: $450.00
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | very sharp , beautiful colour rendition and few distorsion | | Cons: | weak hood protection | |
very sharp at f:3,5 and beyond , beautiful colour with few distorsion (Note that I have the M42 aspheric version). This extreme wide angle lens is perfect for landscapes or wide scenes. you can do instinctively without shooting , its great DOF gives always good sharpness .
Built in filters are usefull , UV for landscape and colours filters for black and white shots
Built in hood is weak to protect sun rays and I sometimes use my hand to extend the hood
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