I bought a pentax super takumar 50mm f1.4 a year or so ago because I thought the radioactive thorium coating was a fun little thing to say I had in my collection, was going to play with it a bit and put it on the shelf to look pretty.
But holyyyy moly I have taken several of my favorite photos and stunning video with this lens, I heard it was good but wow. The hexagonal bokeh is something I find really pretty.
Its not my most used lens of course but I would consider it a personal favorite. Any similar experiences or really special vintage lenses you have used?
I just recieved my 3rd of the same lens. Buying a replacement was a cheaper bet than a full CLA at a good shop after having the first messed up by a hack. My latest is an earlier verion, early serial number but still 7 element, holy moly is the focus ring smooth! The later version I have just isn't anywhere near as nice. Apparently they moved from brass to aluminium over the years? Simply a wonderful lens. I've tried the SMC K mount version some years back but didn't bond with it.
I really like the 35mm f2 Super Tak's rendering, I got it as a freebie, but I've never bonded with 35mm as a focal length so it sits there lonely most of the time,
Another lens I really liked was the FD 24mm f2, I really wish I hadn't sold it back then, it's now selling for silly money.
Playing with the idea of the Pentax K 135mm f2 to try as a longer solution though not that sure.
Thorium dioxide is a component of the glass in some elements of the older pentax lenses, not a coating.
At this point I'm not in favor of using any of the really old lenses. Funky borkahs notwithstanding, the IQ is not up to modern standards in most cases.
EB-1 wrote:
Thorium dioxide is a component of the glass in some elements of the older pentax lenses, not a coating.
At this point I'm not in favor of using any of the really old lenses. Funky borkahs notwithstanding, the IQ is not up to modern standards in most cases.
EBH
At this point I'm not in favor of using any of the really modern lenses. Digital and clinical borkahs notwithstanding, the rendition is not up to older standards in most cases.
There are quite a number of popular vintage lenses with various kinds of rendering. Of course, what appeals to one person may not interest someone else. Two vintage lenses that I like were both made by Carl Zeiss Jena. One is the 58mm f2 Biotar and the other is the 135mm f/3.5 (or f/4, depending on version) Sonnar.
I'm not sure what is meant, is a rendering an optical aberration? I notice a lot of neuralgia lately where everyone is looking for something old. The Chinese are cranking out copies of historically old lens designs for example.
I do like some of the old macros and just about the best old lens I ever used had no aperture at all. IIRC It was f/9 lens for "process" purposes somebody had remounted. So my vote with be for one of the later 55/3.5 micro-Nikkors before the f/2.8 Ai. The latter is too modern to be vintage I suspect.
Pentax Super Takumar 50mm f1.4 and Carl Zeiss Jena Pancolar 50mm & 80mm both f1.8. The colors of Pancolar are really to my liking and Super Takumar has it's own charm and feel when you use it. I like the all metal and glass versions of Super Takumar a lot. I'm a sucker for background bokeh and of all of them do not disappoint. Of course, bokeh taste varies by who is consuming it though.
A few of my favs
The Tokina at-x 90mm 2.5 in the summer with the sun out and I want to shoot details.
The Mamiya/Sekor 55mm 1.4 wide open .
Nikkor 105mm 2.5 is a magical lens that always delivers.
The list is endless of 135mm legacy glass. When I want my tele fix I grab one and itch the scratch.
Lastly the Helios 44-2 58mm f2. This lens makes flare and blur into subtle beauty. They are cheap and easy to repair. On a crop sensor this becomes a portrait dream lens.
Vintage lens photography is so rewarding and with today's mirror less cameras , that have focus peaking and magnification options, a joy to use.
Agreed with @ebwkiw. Mamiya-Sekor 55mm f1.4 is surprisingly sharp wide open. I bought one a while ago, and was working on relubricating it as it had very stiff focusing mechanism. Just finished the cleaning up and done some test shots around the house. It really surprised me with it's performance wide open.
Word of caution on these: They are really dusty and will have some issues with stiff focus ring or aperture or both. But if the glass is clean, they are cleanable and fixable. Worth the effort, if you are into that kind of restorations. And don't buy the SX version, if you plan to as they are stuck wide open due to the pin at the bottom somehow is different in that version.
Sreedhar.
Not strictly vintage, but the TTArtisan 75/1.5 M42 is an interesting lens to play with...a copy of the old Biotar, all metal construction, feels like it would survive a bomb, and super interesting rendering.
Here are three that come to mind:
- Nikkor Noct 58mm f1.2
- Zeiss Planar 85mm f1.4 (or the 1.2 if you can find it)
- Leica Summilux R 75m f1.4 (or the 80/1.4 R)
I actually prefer many of the old planar designs.
I've recently become enamoured by the Schneider 60 XL. While not old yet, its out of production and becoming highly sought after.
griddle151 wrote:
I bought a pentax super takumar 50mm f1.4 a year or so ago because I thought the radioactive thorium coating was a fun little thing to say I had in my collection, was going to play with it a bit and put it on the shelf to look pretty.
But holyyyy moly I have taken several of my favorite photos and stunning video with this lens, I heard it was good but wow. The hexagonal bokeh is something I find really pretty.
Its not my most used lens of course but I would consider it a personal favorite. Any similar experiences or really special vintage lenses you have used?...Show more →
Really too many to mention, a couple favorites are OM Zuiko 65-200/4 and Tamron 70-210 model 46A. Either is better than the 135/3.5 OM Zuiko that is popular on here, imo.
Various 75-150 are good including OM zuiko and Nikon E, Minolta supposedly best. Pretty light even today, although I can't tell you about ff corners (if those are important to you.) 24 (even single coated imo) and 50/3.5 macro OM zuiko excellent.
You might need to stop any of these down to ~f/8, youd see even Leica lenses tested on pop photo in the 90's, not too good at max aperture, f/8 off the charts. The 65-200 and 75-150 E, for instance are good maybe 5.6-11, especially f/8. If it's good at f/8, it's a good lens years ago
The Tamron SP 80-200mm f/2.8 30A was better than the 46A in that era. It was built like a tank and very good optically for an 80-200 zoom of that era. That Tamron was one of my most used lenses in the late manual focus era.
Its funny I have both and really didn't think of a comparison, I don't think. Both are good and topped out at 63 lp/mm on the Modern photography tests.
The 70-210 has 1:2.8 macro so I've used that and it's very popular predecessor 80-210 a lot more. Probably not as sharp as most macro lenses , inexpensive ~200mm macro, though
The 70-210 46A and arguably 80-200/2.8 adaptall-2 are two lenses that top out at f/11, contradicting the (potentially bogus) modern shoot-at-5.6 diffraction claims.
If you look at adaptall-2.com, they post Modern Photography test numbers on many. The 50/1 8 Canon had its best performance of 63 lp/mm, some of the Tamron 80's zooms surpass that, including 28-80 SP and 28-70 44A. Both copies of 28-80 SP I've had broke but its so inexpensive and i wish they'd put the glass in a kit mount, maybe update it a bit and sell it inexpensively instead of all the computational imaging required stuff lately
griddle151 wrote:
Any similar experiences or really special vintage lenses you have used?
I have a lot of glass that spans decades. Some of it qualifies as vintage (1950s Leitz) but my really special vintage lens is the Canon 300/5.6 FL-F from 1969 that was a world first for its use of fluorite (2 elements). It's not a lens that anyone owns these days but it has a monster-level of performance, and a build quality that no-one can produce these days (not even Canon). I shoot this FL-F on Sony A7ii and Nikon Z6. Thanks to MILC, we can finally enjoy every SLR lens—no more hassles with registration distance.
