Digital Ink'd

Sometimes you have to keep plugging away and just keep moving forward. Don't get derailed.

Lens Info: Super-Takumar 55mm 1.2 @ f/2

 © Digital Ink'D Photography

I shot these blighted apples over in my neighbor's yard with the Super-Takumar 135mm with a hood.  The lighting source was trickery with a hood on and outside being cloudy in some places and bright in other areas. Hopefully tomorrow I can get access to this abandoned place I want to shoot so badly.

This was shot with my new Takumar 135mm 1:3.5 using ISO 200, 1/200s, M Mode, Daylight exposure, and with an aperture of f/16 and f/22. You can really see the grey details in the moon on this perfect clear night/morning. As I am writing this post it is nearly 3AM EST. 2:37AM EST to be exact. I wanted to capture some low light video footage using my Yashica 1.4 but some clouds rolled in and ruined my shot. Oh well there will be more supermoons in the near future. This is just a mere sample of the quality of Asahi Takumars. A really instrumental piece of excellent optical glass. Now, I am off to bed!!

Goodnight or is it morning?

The best and worst of times in the subway is a early morning ride. Quiet, buzzed and sleepy travelers.

A 135mm 1:2.8 lens.
I am here trying to find the appriopriate adapter for this 135mm Minetar lens. If anyone knows anything about this pre-cursor to the T-Mount hit me up in the comments or my Facebook page here. The seller states its a 49.2mm/1-15/16" Tokyo Koki mount. Used by Soligor, Sun, Tokyo Koko, Vemar, and other lens manufacturers. Adapters have been seen for Minolta MD, M42, and Nikon cameras. Preferably I am looking for an adapter in the M42 range since I have a M42-EOS adapter.

You can view more mount photos here in this folder on Mediafire.

http://www.mediafire.com/folder/mflhi6x9bo218/Lenses
Source: eBay Listing

I think this lens is pretty rare by manual focus standard lenses. It not even listed on the M42 database list. The 28mm and 135mm Samigon are only listed but not Samigon 35mm. I wonder why. Just a quick look over.


Source: Samigon Corp Lens Database

A short lens test using the Zenitar telephoto 135mm manual focus lens. I wished I could of shot this in ML RAW rather than Canon's h.264. I think I might be taking a trip over the Magic Lantern forums so I can at least shoot for a few seconds and really open the Canon 600D. It would really give these old lenses another century to shine. My growing 135mm collection is growing really fast. Now, all I need is a Super-Takumar 85mm. I need to control my G.A.S. urges. My wallet is not happy!

This was shot at f/5.6, ISO 100, 1920x1080 24p.

Many more lenses I have in store for this blog!

This is a shot of some weeds in my neighbor's overgrown backyard. Just the other day he cleaned it up. I wonder why? :)

You can't go wrong with a Super-Takumar lens. Sharp images, sharp contrast and crazy bokeh. I purchased my 55mm copy (a steal) for around $23.00 USD. The lens does have an inordinate amount of these white particles sitting on the back element lens but you would not even know that if I did not reveal this tragic flaw. The pictures here would not even show any discernable trace of particulate in the way. The quality make and feel of Super-Takumars is phenomenal. If you are not into manual focus lens and believe in the auto-focus Gods, a takumar inside your camera bag is worth a bit of space any day. I recommend getting yourself a copy in the 50mm, 55mm and 135mm. Matter fact any will do. These lenses perform like champions. If the post man would hurry up and deliver my takumar 135mm I can get outside and test it out.

The beautiful Komura Sankyo Koki K.K (Koki).
Read more about this lens at Komura Wiki!!


















Two Sample Images Below

I started trying to see what this lens can really do in sunny conditions today. I was a bit disappointed in how it renders the background considerably softer and not very sharp. Outside is very bright and I opened it all the way to f/2.8. This lens is very soft. You can see that with soft areas of the picture with my bicycle handle and the background. (I should park my bike out of the way sometimes) It is not really a good wide angle lens to use. I feel this lens is more adaptable for up close shots rather than wide shots. I think I will try that today and maybe tomorrow and come back with a couple review shots to determine if I should keep this lens in my camera bag or return it to fleBay. I am going to do some more research on this lens because it seems this copy or glass isn't very good. Well off to test this alternative lens some more.

Lens info: Samigon 35mm Auto Wide F/2.8

This morning I took an early morning shoot in the park with all the early morning bicyclists and joggers. I enjoyed it today because I opened up my camera and interchangeable lenses on the beautiful clove where three benches open up to the dark green pond full of fish and other unknowns.

I sampled the Komura Sankyo Kohki 135mm and the Samigon 35mm. The Kohki 135mm photos opened wide at f/3.5 causes a bit of over exposure due to the bright sun with zero clouds so early at 8 in the morning. I stopped it down around f/5.6 and f/8 and the pictures really start to shine with sharp colors and nice contrast of greens and yellows. The Sankyo Kohki really sings at f/5.6. Old Japanese lenses really give you something more than auto-focus lenses. Many will argue modern lenses are better with better optics  glass and coatings. In the alternative while these old manual focus lenses might not have snazzy modern glass coatings and optics they still produce spectacular images in the hands of pros an…

I am loving this old Yashionon-DS 1.4 50mm. I am really in love it with it to say the least. Too bad my nifty-fifty is on the shelf dust tanning. This morning I took some quick shots in the garden over the fence. Really liked how it turned out. You can really see the bokeh in the background. I really need to get this lens aperture ring fix since I can only shoot wide open (f/16) and not at f/1.4. I'll get to the lens repair place sometime this summer. These are RAW unedited JPEG's straight from the camera.


Lens: Yashica Yashinon-DS 50mm 1:1.4

Lens Info: Komura Sankyo Kohki F=135mm 1:3.5

Today, I took a long ride cruising Ocean Parkway until I came to the end of one part of Brooklyn. Ocean Parkway extends over a distance of about five miles (8 km), running almost north to south from the vicinity of Prospect Park to Brighton Beach. On the boardwalk were a lot of couples, old people, families and beachgoers. It wasn't surprising to see so much people since Friday we had rain from morning until probably late into early Saturday morning. I took a few shots of my new Japanese glass I bought recently. I think I am having a problem buying all these old telephoto lens. Another 135mm added to the collection. If only if I would save my money for a vintage Carl Zeiss Planar T*.

Here I only took a few snaps because my previous location did not pan out to test out the Asanuma 135mm. I look forward in the coming days in using this nice lens on my Canon 600D.




Lens Info
Serial No: 335311

This Japanese lens was made by Asanuma Shokai in the early '10s and '20s. The lens is pretty well built for these particular types of old manual lenses. It s pretty light and not to solid or heavy like a Takumar. A good choice for a short tele-photo lens in the camera bag. So far the images are pretty sharp and overall great contrasting colors. A lens I will be surely using for the foreseeable future.
Asanuma Shōkai has been a Japanese distributor of photographic supplies from the 19th century to the present day (2010). It manufactured its own large-format studio or field cameras, and also some amateur cameras in the 1910s and 1920s. Today it is best known for its range of accessories sold under the brand King.









Source: Photo Pentax, Camerapedia,

A quick indoor test shot of a Komura Sankyo Kohki 135mm pentax screw mount. It has 16 aperture blades. Avery well regarded telephoto lens for your lens bag. Vintage glass is pretty extraordinary. I can see myself using this lens often if I was not so tired after work. More to come from this excellent lens.


Camera Info
Canon T3i/600D
ISO 100
f/22
Exposure: 3.2 sec


Source: Pentax Lens Forum, mflenses Forum,

Tom Majerski just sampled a Blackmagic Cinema Camera (BCC) and a 5d MkII together with the same lens, same shutter, and ISO settings. This short 11 second video shows us that the A video sequence is definitely the Canon 5d MkII which shows great details in the highlights then the B video sequence. It looks like the Magic Lantern firmware is really going to affect people who were ready to purchase BCC's. Just buying a couple used 5 Mk II's and 5 MkIII's and you have a capable profession video camera that really gives more bang for your buck (G.A.S.)
Check out the low light test comparison with the Magic Lantern firmware below.


Magic Lantern vs. H264 ISO Shootout Magic Lantern vs H264 ISO Shootout. from MIDAS MANAGEMENT on Vimeo.


This is really exciting news for Canon owners and soon to be Canon owners. I can't wait for the stable release to hit the pipeline.

Source: Tom Majerski, Midas Management, Planet5d Blog, NoFilmSchool,

Click to enlarge pictures.


A Yashica Yashinon-DS 50mm 1:1.4 paired w/a EOS 600D. It really has a nice orange tint/glow that makes it magical in its appearance. Today, I shot a few indoor raw JPEG shots inside a doll house with Skylanders Spyro's Adventure and Skylanders Giants figurine characters. I shot at around ISO 800, f/16, neutral picture style, white fluorescent light, exposure compensation +1 and without a tripod. I realized today I need to purchase the MeFoto tripod right away. No editing was done to these photos. Straight from the belly of the EOS 600D.

Shots wide open on this lens is incredibly sharp and rich in detail. I can't wait to repair the aperture ring and shoot at f/1.4. I can only dream when that heavenly day comes. Will be doing more testing throughout the week. This was only an indoor studio shot in my basement but I am going to take it outside later this week in the day and night to really see how this lens truly performs. Therefore, this lens is a gr…