Sharp Shooter Super-Takumar Asahi 55mm 1:2

Pollinating Bee Inside Flower
Shot all these photos wide open at f/2.
Yellow Daisies Behind Backyard Fence
No editing was done in the post. Straight RAW and unprocessed.

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. 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 lenses and believe in the auto-focus Gods, a Takuma 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 of fact any will do. These lenses perform like champions. If the postman would hurry up and deliver my takumar 135mm I can get outside and test it out.

Purple Cluster of Flower Heads
Very willing flower buds and bee subjects for my shoot today.
Round Bokeh Flower Buds
The blues and purple colors really stand out. Deadly sharp.
Hovering Bee Pollinating Flower
A bee among young flower buds.
📋 Reader Records
🔭 Do you shoot the Super-Takumar 55mm?

Have you run this Asahi 55mm on a modern body, and which adapter did you settle on? Sample frames wide open at f/2, comparisons against other vintage 55mm glass, and notes on how much haze or dust on the rear element you can live with before it finally shows are all welcome. So is anything on telling the radioactive thoriated copies apart from the rest. Full credit given to all contributors.

⬇️ Keep Reading
📷 More old glass on a modern body
Other eBay lens buys, sample shoots, and the hazards that come with sixty-year-old optics.
📷 eBay Vintage Lens Buy: Asahi Super-Takumar 55mm 1:2 Where this one came from: about sixteen dollars, and a cluster of dust sitting on the rear element. › 🌙 A Supermoon for a Asahi Super-Takumar 135mm Tele The 135mm I was waiting on the postman for. It turned up in time for the June supermoon. › 🔭 Samigon 35mm f/2.8 - Sample Review Two Wide open in bright sun it was very soft, and I was weighing up sending it back to the seller. › 🎯 Asanuma Auto-Tele 135mm 1:2.8 - Sample Photos A different 135mm, carried the five miles of Ocean Parkway from Prospect Park to Brighton Beach. › 🚫 BEWARE of Vintage Lens Fungus The windowsill sunlight cure works, until it leaks lubricant onto the aperture blades and freezes them shut. › 🔧 Camera Repair by Rick Oleson The repairman vintage camera people keep pointing each other toward. ›
📍 The Super-Takumar 55mm 1:2 is an M42 screw-mount standard prime from Asahi Optical, made through the 1960s and early 1970s and still one of the cheapest ways into manual glass.

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