Pentax Takumar 50mm/f1.4 : Beautiful Golden Sunset

Taken with my trusty pentax KX and a trusty Super MC Takumar 50mm f1.4

I missed the amber and pink sunset last night, so i vowed to take my camera to work :)

this was the best shot of the 2 dozen i got of tonights sunset

laterz

The answer is: Alienskins exposure 3 plugin for photoshop

I keep getting the itch to try film again, then i remember how unwieldy and wasteful it was, every shot basically costs 30 cents and you have to wait until you get it developed . Saying that, the quality is perfect if the shot comes out nicely , if it doesnt.........well then too bad :)

 The photo I posted yesterday was edited with a filter pack trial from this  company

http://www.alienskin.com/exposure/index.aspx

they have a few hundred filters that were custommade by various photographer to emulate everything from ilford B+W to Fuji Velvia 50 slide film ( complete with a gran/no grain option!)

here is a quick photo that was taken witha modern lens, a pentax FA50/1.4 autofocus one , it has the exact same optical formula as the Super Takumar 50/1.4 series, that you can see from the out of focus smooth bokeh

1954 Carl zeiss jena Tessar 50/2.8: When is film not film?

 

A quick update/quiz before I go to bed, I found a great shot that I had forgotten to post

its a 1954 Carl Zeiss Jena 50mm /2.8 Tessar (that I got for super cheap as it has a few dings in it,) and I took this nice sunset shot using Fuji Provia , the old film , or is it?

Ill leave this up for a day and see if anyone can figure out the trick :)

Contax Carl Zeiss T* Planar 50/1,7: the Sharpest 50mm ever?

someone asked me what some of these lenses look like, so here is a shot I took today of the long named:

" Contax Carl Zeiss T* Planar 50mm f1.7 MMJ" phew, say that 9 times fast!

This lens is interesting and also cool for a few reasons

1: A lens built in Japan  ( the J in MMJ) by Kyocera for Contax under license from Carl Zeiss

2: Contax /Yashica mount, named bacause it was used for 2 brands of lenses, the contax one here and also the lesser quality ( some say equal) Yashica lenses that can be bought for about 1/4 the price of these Zeiss ones , but they use the Zeiss technological input

3: Its a 50mm 1.7 lens, and is one of the rare lenses that is sharp at its widest aperture ( 1.7) a lot of lenses are incredibly fast , but when they are wide open youget a lot of chromatic aberration, or fringing , or the lens is just plain soft. This lens is sharp, has a tiny bit of purple fringing if the light hits the lens just so, and for CA I coudlnt see any of note . It is also regarded by some people to be one of the, if not THE sharpest 50mm lens ever made, but that is highly debated all over the net , google it and see

For this shot: ISO 800 and taken with my new 50mm f1.4 FA Pentax lens on my KX, and I already think its not as sharp as my Takumar 50/1.4 , but I need to do some more testing on it. It was placed on a C/Y>EOS adapter and lit by 2 x 100W spotlights inside a homemade lightbox on a piece of black polished slate

Super Takumar 50/1.4 : Miso Soup for the soul

 Continuing with my theme of food establishment fotos, I took my eldest daughter to the local authentic sushi bar , well I guess she took me because I wanted to go to the coffee place :)

 We had a 24 piece party pack of sushi and maki and it was delicious except for the miso soup which I didnt like ( she didnt either)  being a kid she got away with " I dont like it" and I had to make do with " I left some in the bowl so I can take some photos of it ":)

 Im trying something new that I learned on another site , Thorsten Overgaards excellent site . For outdoors Im using ISO 100 for indoors ISO 800 , and I am also trying to use the lenses as close to wide open as possible , so this shot is:

 Pentax KX with 1971 Asahi Pentax Takumar 50/1.4 @ 1.4 ISO 800 and shutter speed of  1/60 second. The in-body IS ability of the KX is a godsend for these type of shots , and I also found that the density of the Takumar makes the camera really easy to hold steady as it ends up being well balanced.  full size here

 I mostly took this shot as I noticed the crazy bokeh of the spotlights in the restaurant , and I cheated alittle by sliding my bowl directly underneath one of them !

later , now Im hungry, just not for Miso

DDR Pentacon 50/1.8 : bargain lenses part V

Here is another inexpensive gem for a M42 lens, the East German Pentacon 50/1.8 , it appears to be similar to a carl Zeiss lens, but instead of costing 250+ you can find them on ebay for 30-50 dollars!

 I think Pentacon was a conglomerate of optics manufacturers that was created in the 40s/50s in  East Germany from a lot of the smaller businesses that were still around after WW2 , but I am not 100% sure about that . The lens I have is well made , and all metal and it feels really dense, Ill have to do some research to see what its construction internally is, because it feels like it has a lot of glass in there. Focusing is smooth and its called a 50/1.8 MC so I assume its multi coated , but again Im not sure. All I know is , it takes very pleasing shots and it can focus very close, about 30 cm  , which is almost macro territory!

This is a shot taken in my computer room using the M42 adapter on my Pentax KX , and its my daughters curly hair , I was so close the depth of field is razor thin, but as you can see, parts of the strands are in focus and are quite well defined  , this was wide open at 1.8 and using ambient light, so as usual, a shot I took for a goof ended up being a keeper , I should rely on my instinct more often and not try and force creativity

laterz

Pentax Takumar 50mm/f1.4 : A very Smooootth bokeh

One of the reasons I like these primes is that invariably they have excellent optics for a fraction of the price of a new lens , this is taken in the coffee shop ( I really do have other pictures!) and i focused too short on purpose and in Lightroom i adjusted the white balance ( maladjusted actually) to tungsten instead of fluorescent because I like blue and it accentuated the blue glow from the reflections from the microwave

 The only thing I really had to change was the noise in the image, the Pentax KX takes really good JPGs but I am now using mostly RAW as the vintages lenses have a tendency to over or underexpose depending on the f-stop used  ( no correction inside the camera like the fancy new lenses) and i found that trying to add 2 stops to a jpg ended up with banding

 The plus side is that when you use higher ISO settings, the RAW files actually look like film grain, so it fits perfectly my *vision* of what i wanted to accomplish with this project, shoot filmic imagery without using film :)

ISO 800 wide open at F1.4 focused about 1 metre before the object , and hand held , the body image stabilisation is a godsend!

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

The Japanese leica lens: Super Multi Coated takumar 50mm/1.4

Ahhh , now we are talking epic vintage lenses, and affordable too . In the 50s after the korean war, the UN troops were quite taken by the quality of the japanese optics, as they were as good as the German gear , but at a lesser cost , after a while the Japanese really came into their own, and one of the forerunners was Asahi Optical , which became pentax after the style of their cameras PENtaprism conTAX , the Pentax brand became so well known that they changed from Asahi Optical to Pentax Cameras I believe

 Enough history, what I have is one of the best regarded Pentax lenses the Super Multi Coated Takumar 50mm/1,4 , I have a few takumars that  I use on a regular basis , but the 50mm is my go to, I have shot a wedding with it, quite a few portraits, landscape , candids etc, all came out better than I expected  , this lens is very clear , and sharp and optically to get the same quality in a modern AF lens you would spend over 1200 dollars , and this can be had for around 100 , but the secret is out and the prices are rising rapidly due to the Canon 5/7D video gang , the 7 glass elements are well made and the outer body is metal, so the lens is dense, and very solid .

 If you are used to modern plasticy autofocus enses, the first time you pick up a Takumar it feels like you are holding a hand grenade, a hand grenade of awesome!  What Asahi's design mantra atthe time was to create a lens that was better than zeiss of Leica, and they achieved pretty much that ideal, in the 60s this lens was $199 and i read somewhere that they took a loss on every one they made until the manufacturing process became less expensive , to convert that, $199 in the 60s is about $2000 now!

 This shot was taken at night time using my pentax KX using the official m42>PK adapter from the pentax site, it was 30 dollars and it lets my KX use ANY pentax lens made from the mid 50s until today ! Adapter info I stepped the lens down to f4 so the OOF highlights would be octagonal as it has 8 blades inside, it came out nicer than I thought, and here is the full size version  full size : click on original

Carl Zeiss Planar T* 50mm/1,7 : Wide open!

I managed to find a CZ T* Planar 50mm for a really good price , 200 dollars canadian , with caps and a UV filter, it is MINT , but unfortunately for me, it is in the Contax/yashica mount which doesnt work with my preferred Pentax KX.

 So I had to break out my old ( 2003) Canon Rebel XT ( EOS 350) and use that instead, so I pop the lens on  , take a few shots and uploaded them to the PC , this one came out really nice,its shot at f1.7 and is the last vestiges of sunlight streaming through the blinds to my computer room, quite sharp for wide open.

I did some research and on some sites the Planar 50/1,7 is regarded by some as one of the sharpest 50mms ever made, and it definitely has a beautiful build quality , the focus is silky smooth, the only downside is that now I have 2 camera bodies and the only reason for keeping the Rebel is to use the planars :(

Sunrise with 1954 CZ Jena tessar 50mm f2.8

This was the only bright part of the day, the sunrise peeked under the overcast for less than 5 minutes, so I was outside with my KX and the Carl Zeiss Tessar lens I have that cost me 40 dollars off a guy in Greece. I did the post processing while listening to Vangelis' Blade Runner soundtrack, so perhaps thats why I made it in an anamorphic aspect ratio

The lens is single coated and prone to flare, but I like it , and I dont know why,but  it has a great rendering that the more modern lenses dont do, is it more contrast? less definition? I dont know , but it was made when black and white photography was the norm, so when used to take colour, it seems to really generate excellent images

Ray of Gold : Super MC Takumar 50/1.4

Ray of Gold

taken with a Super MC Takumar 50mm f1.4 at f1.4 on my Pentax KX

 On the way back to the car during an evening photo trip  the golden sunset was almost done,but a ray of light shone through the forest and landed on this leaf , so I took a picture of it naturally :)

 I like this lens, even if it is a bit yellowed with age , the thorium coating causes the cement inside to discolour over time!

Bokeh Christmas tree! Takumar 50mm /f1.4

Super Multi Coated Asahi-Pentax Takumar 50mm f1.4 at f1.4 on my Pentax KX

I had the lens wide open to get the circular highlights,  if you stop it down below F2 it turns them into octagons, and by f4 they are perfectly symmetrical . Quite cool!