Super Takumar 105mm f2.8 - Photo Set

In the hay days of manual film cameras, the 105mm focal length was quite popular, especially from the cheaper third party lens makers/resellers. Soligor, Sun, Hanimex are among them.  Pentax also had one in the M42 mount (they also made one for 6x7 medium format as well).  Despite the popularity of the 105mm focal length, the Pentax Takumar M42 version isn't as common.  Unfortunately, this is also one of my least liked Takumar lens.  I don't know why, but having had at least three copies of this lens, I never seemed to warm up to it.  The reason I still have one, is because it was cheap when I bought it, and I haven't sold a lens for a while.

The lens looks like the Takumar 135mm f3.5 and almost the same size as well.  The copy I have is not Super Multi-Coated, just Super Takumar so it doesn't have the famous multi-coating. This may explain why the lens has very severe colour fringing, especially green, in backlit and sometimes not even contrasty scenes. It's trivial to correct in Lightroom, but still, it's bothersome. The lens does not have very high contrast, properly designed like that as it's a portraiture lens.  It's also not very sharp until stopped down to around f5.6 to f8; again, this might be designed like this.  The other thing I don't like about this lens is the relatively long minimum focus distance of 1.2m.

Too bad I am not using this lens as a portraiture lens like it was designed for.  Still, it makes a nice short telephoto lens and is quite versatile.  The small size and the lightweight are nice. It also inherits the legendary build quality of the Takumar lenses and focuses butterly smooth.

And, you may like it more than I do.

The girl & her dog - NEX-6 & Super Takumar 105mm f2.8. Click for larger.

Lone Leaf - NEX-6 & Super Takumar 105mm f2.8 with Yeenon Helicoid. Click for larger.

Park Bench - NEX-6 & Super Takumar 105mm f2.8. Click for larger.

Stairs - NEX-6 & Super Takumar 105mm f2.8