Pentax Takumar 50mm/f1.4 : How good is it in low light?

One of the main reasons I like the older Prime lenses it that they have excellent optics and invariably they are VERY fast . This helps me in a few ways as first of all I dont like using flash too much on my family as we are very pale and a flash makes us look like twilight fans.

 Second of all, a wide open aperture thats under F2.0 has a razor thin depth of field that works great for portraiture as it can isolate your subject easier to cut out background or foreground clutter in the case to the left

I took  this inside a dimly lit coffee shop on an overcast day in january using ISO 800 and f1.4 wide open on my Super MC Takumar 50/1.4 , the Pentax KX body has really good higher ISO capabilities, and 800 is as good as 200 on my rebel XT , but the KX is 7 years newer :)

 As you can see from the shot , my daughters eyes and face are in focus and everything else is blurred, but not blurry to the point of annoyance, I find it actually quite a pleasing effect as the blur is subtle and smooth
the only reason I converted it to Black and White was I thought the tones and contrast looked better in B+W as opposed to colour :)

bye for now