super-tak.

so i bought a lens the other day.

for $60.

in everyday terms, that's a shitton, and it is for me - i'm basically not eating the rest of the month (lunches, anyway) to make up for it. for a lens it's pretty damn cheap.

it was the super-takumar 50mm f1.4, i guess what you could call a legendary lens. its production run was back when pentax was under the name asahi; the cameras were named asahi pentax, and the lens line was asahi takumar. the first SLR i used, the ones from school, were old enough to also be labelled asahi pentax. anyways, back to the sexmachine takumar. this lens has quite a bit of history about it:
-it was produced from 1964-1971, which means this thing is like 2.5x my age
-it was meant to be a Zeiss killer. Zeiss was (and still is) one of the best lensmakers evar, cept for Leica, which, if you know much about photography, = god. that's all they are, no question, just god. this lens beat theirs, back day, i believe. and, well, Zeiss' too.
-since it was meant to rock Zeiss' world, it's built like a tank, and its optics are amazing. it feels sexy in hand,                and is sharp as hell at any aperture (a lot of people say it's pretty soft wide open at f1.4. after shooting with it a bit (in my computer room of course), i think it's cause they misfocused. at f1.4, if you nudge the focus ring a little the wrong way, if your breathing causes you to lean so much as a hair forward, you might miss the focus. supposedly, every single one of these was sold at a loss because of how much went into it. modern-day leica equivalents (which this thing supposedly beats, or beat back in the day - i doubt i'll ever own a leica so it's not like i can compare myself) cost $3700; the zeiss equivalent goes for $700. still over 10x what i paid, and none of these have autofocus anyway.
-it existed in 3(.5) versions:

• the super-takumar 8 elements version. basically this was expensive as shitbrix to make, and once everyoned finished jizzing on sight with it, they switched it out with...
• the super-takumar 7 elements version. supposedly this version performs better, but that's just internet hearsay so i wouldn't know. this is the one i have. 
• the super-multi-coated version. this was released in 1970 or so and featured pentax's multi-coating, which was a huuuuge invention - every zoom lens you own, from your point and shoot to dslr zooms, owes its coating to this technology. coating doesn't sound like much to you? without that coating, everytime you shot into the sun you'd have insane flare, without it. it increased light transmission in lenses by a shitton (on paper it's a percent or two, but after all the nerdy math shit, it's a lot). supposedly the later super-taks were also given this coating as a let's see what happens and rerelease it if it works out thing, the sun hasn't come out yet so i haven't been able to see if mine has this or not
• the SMC version. this was released shortly after the super-multi-coated version; it features a slightly less sexy look and, im not sure what else. the coatings might have been refined, something, idk.

but enough talk, here's the beast:

i dunno if it's just me, but i love how this thing looks - the focus ring looks so cool to me. and it feels amazing to focus too: the old M50/1.7 i had was similarly smooth, but it  felt a bit more sluggish. this one is a bit easier to turn, but still much less loose than all the young modern lenses (that was a slutty 13 year old girls joke. sort of. or, hey, boys too.), and it feels perfect to me - pure handsex. i'm amazed how good condition mine is, especially considering the age - barely a spot of dust, and only on the edges of the rear element (since my camera uses an aps-c sensor, the glass on the edge of the lens won't even make it onto the image anyways), no fungus at all, and very few paint chips. i probably take worse care of stuff i've owned for a week.

more of it:

you may notice in this last photo that there's quite a degree of yellowing in the glass. this is not because it was made by chinese workers (okay, it was made in japan. but that's irrelevant). this is because this lens is radioactive. it has radioactive thorium in it. and that causes the yellowing. that is amazingly awesome to me. unfortunately the yellowing, while it does make for a nice warm image, also does rob the lens of light transmission (it darkens the image). below is a picture of my watch shot by the super-tak at f1.4 (top), and again by my fa 50 at f1.7 (bottom)

since the fa50 is a good half stop slower, its image should be quite noticeably darker, but as you can see it's distinctly brighter (and also that the super-tak's image has a warmish hue to it). this means the effective light transmission of the super-tak is about f2 right now, which half defeats the purpose of being a fast f1.4 lens. the good news, is, however, this yellowing can be cured by exposure to UV light, and, as luck would have it, this weekend's forecast says it'll be sunny. a good day (or seven)'s exposure to the sun should get rid of the yellow light and restore it to how it should be. still cool thuough. a goddamn radioactive lens.

i shot this bottle of lubriderm at f5.6, 1/60, iso 100, the only lighting from a reading lamp and the room lights. it'll be interesting to see the difference in brighting under identical conditions once it's been cured of its yellowness (i think that's the first time i've said that in my life without a hint of racism intended)

since this lens was back before computers existed (wow.), nothing is automatic on it. you have to press a button just to meter, and manual focus, and then stop it down to the aperture you want - focus at f1.4, then change it to f5.6 (for example) when you take the shot. a bit of a hassle but it's kind of like those processes that just make you think more - about exposure, compensation, everything. pretty excited to take this thing on a photowalk and try it out in real life (ie beyond my comp room LOL). i've found that when focussing, i can use the in-focus confirmation light to help me out. it's too undiscerning about focus - i can turn a few degrees and still be "in focus" according to the camera. but what i've found is that if i back focus and then slowly focus in from behind (hehe), the moment the light pops up, is when it's in focus. going in from the front, or in the "middle" zone of the in focus light makes for an OOF picture. 

anyways, here's a quick snap of my mom as she was leaving. considering this was

a) at f1.4, when the lens is reportedly "dreamily soft"
b) at 1/13 in a kinda awkward holding position - probably was some handshake there despite the SR

c) in a rush to focus (hell hath no fury like an impatient woman, ignoring the fact that 50% of history consisted of waiting for them to pick something to wear) as my mom was leaving, and before i learned the focus light trick,

this was pretty damn sharp.

and a 100% crop:

this thing is awesome.