Pentax Takumar 35mm/f3.5 : a bargain lens part I

I got a message from someone asking whats a good way to start with manual focus lenses on the modern cameras , well here is part 1 of a quick suggestion list of what you can get for a small amount of cash.

 First off you need an adapter to utilise the lenses on a modern body, I used the official m42>pentax K adapter for my lenses, but if you are using say a Canon body , then you will need a m42> eos adapter, the ebay seller Fotodiox sells decent ones for a good price, I think mine was under 15 dollars shipped.

 Next of course you will need a lens, an inexpensive one at the moment is the one in my shot here, a Super MC Takumar 35mm/3.5 by Pentax,  mine was 20 dollars and as you can see it is mint, in fact that guy who sold it to me said it had taken perhaps half a roll of film in 1970 or so , and was unused until I popped it onto a body 40 years later , the threading still had black paint on it :) On ebay right now you can expect to grab this for about 60-80 dollars with lens caps and a hood  , like I said , the Takumars are going up in price rapidly , but they are very well made and have a great rendering to them that I find pleasing, especially the out of focus *bokeh* which reminds me of a painting . The neat part is that on a cropped sensor the 35mm becomes a 52mm to 56 mm lens , which is close to the classic film 50mm standard size.

here is a link to the full size image full size on flickr