OT: Pentax 50mm 1.4 lens question

[pcfranchina]

I reciently picked up a Pentax 50mm 1.4 lens for my k-1000. Seems clear and fungus free.....But i notice if i shake the lens i hear something metal making noise in there? Anyone have this lens?

Thanks in advance.

[OldNick]

I have the M42 screwmount version of this lens, and, after reading your question, removed it from the camera and shook it. Motion front-to-back produced no sound. A sharp motion side-to-side produced a "clunk" sound, not metalic. I suspect it is from play in the focusing helix.

Jim N.

[akptc]

I have a brand new autofocus version, it rattles when shook vertically - slight metalic noise, and it rattles just a tiny bit (barely) when shaken horizontally.

[JimG]

Yep, mine does too. K-mount. JimG

[pcfranchina]

Ok at least im not the only one. I had just picked this up from B&H Used Section. They had the 1.4 and the 1.7 I went with the 1.4.

[bmattock]

Don't shake it too much. I have a M42 Pentax Super-Multi-Coated Takumar, and it is *the* finest prime lens for SLR that I own. And I'm a Canon guy by personal history. A bitter pill to swallow, but it smacks my best Canon 50mm FD 1.4 about the head and shoulders.

A fantastic lens - really.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

[chenick]

OK. I have the K-mount version. I just gave it a shake. It has a slight rattle.

Mine has a slight rattle and clunk too. (K-mount version (-K not -M version)
No problems with usage though.

I have an image of many people shaking their lenses out of curiosity!

-Nick

[pcfranchina]

Any feelings on the 1.4 k-mount?

[pcfranchina]

Hey G'man,
Tell me your lens makes a little noise too, then I feel ok about it :)

I was thinkin about going back there but B&H closes early on fridays.

[bmattock]

Any feelings on the 1.4 k-mount?

There are two of them, the A and the M. The A has the 'auto' setting for later AE-capable Pentaxes (ME, etc). M is 'manual'. I only have a 50mm f/1.7 A, not an M and not a 1.4 (too expensive)! I find the 50mm f/1.7 SMC-A to be a fantastic lens as well. I have not yet compared the S-M-C 50mm f/1.4 and SMC-A 50mm f/1.7, but I am sure it would come up only slightly less well-off than the master.

I have heard that some people prefer the M and some the A, but I don't know. All I know is that I can use the A on my Pentax *ist DS in full auto mode and that makes me happy as a clam. Great lens for that - beats ANY kit zoom, and makes the already-small *ist DS even smaller.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

[bmattock]

Super lens!
I even use it with my macro focusing converter.

Is that the one we discussed? I always meant to ask you how you liked that - I love mine in Canon FD mount, but have not gotten around to getting one in P/K mount.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

[JimG]

Mine is the SMC Pentax-M 1.4 it's my favorite SLR lens, but the M42 Pentax Super-Multi-Coated Takumar Bill mentions is a better lens according to what I've read. Jim

[bmattock]

Mine is the SMC Pentax-M 1.4 it's my favorite SLR lens, but the M42 Pentax Super-Multi-Coated Takumar Bill mentions is a better lens according to what I've read. Jim

I'd love to do a side-by-side comparo someday, but probably won't be able to afford to do so anytime soon. I got my S-M-C M42 before they went sky-high, lucky me. I can't say enough about it. I shoot and scan with a KM SD IV using Vuescan and The Gimp (running Linux) and I just can't seem to run the lens out of resolving power. I run out of max resolution on the scanner first. Wide open, the thing is a monster. From f/4 on, it is unbelievable. I wish that there was less difference between my best Canon lens and my best Pentax, I really do. Sickening.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

[pcfranchina]

Glad to know my lunch time walk down to B&H wasnt a total waste. :)

[nightfly]

I have one and I love it as well. I think someone actually gave it to me. Even though I hardly ever use my SLR anymore, when I need a low light lens, that's the camera and lens I grab. Throw some Neopan 1600 in and you are good to go:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mediumstudios/sets/857061/

[bmattock]

I have one and I love it as well. I think someone actually gave it to me. Even though I hardly ever use my SLR anymore, when I need a low light lens, that's the camera and lens I grab. Throw some Neopan 1600 in and you are good to go:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mediumstudios/sets/857061/

Cool! Is that a rocking Rabbi?

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

[anandi]

Don't shake it too much. I have a M42 Pentax Super-Multi-Coated Takumar, and it is *the* finest prime lens for SLR that I own. And I'm a Canon guy by personal history. A bitter pill to swallow, but it smacks my best Canon 50mm FD 1.4 about the head and shoulders.

A fantastic lens - really.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

Really? I'm not doubting you, just curious. I've had really good results with my Canon 50mm lenses and more with the 1.8 FD than a 1.4 actually (and you can pick up 1.8/50 FDs for almost free these days). I recently picked up a couple of slower Super Taks to make a Spotmatic Kit including a 55/2 a 28/3.5 and a 135/3.5 and was *really* impressed with the build quality and feel of these older lenses. The shots seemed pretty sharp, and I've wondered how they stacked up against similar Canon FD and Nikon AIS lenses for most people.

[bmattock]

Really? I'm not doubting you, just curious. I've had really good results with my Canon 50mm lenses and more with the 1.8 FD than a 1.4 actually (and you can pick up 1.8/50 FDs for almost free these days). I recently picked up a couple of slower Super Taks to make a Spotmatic Kit including a 55/2 a 28/3.5 and a 135/3.5 and was *really* impressed with the build quality and feel of these older lenses. The shots seemed pretty sharp, and I've wondered how they stacked up against similar Canon FD and Nikon AIS lenses for most people.

I speak the truth - but this is my experience only - your mileage may vary.

My first camera of any consequence was the Canon FX - and I've been hooked on Canon steel and glass ever since. I love 'em all from the FX up the the FTbN (never owned an F-1). I have a full collection of pristine FL-mount glass (minus the super long and the flourite glass) and a bunch of the FD-mount lenses in popular focal lengths.

When I first got my Pentax S-M-C 50mm f/1.4 M42, I put it on my newly-aquired Bessaflex and went out shooting - took my Canon T-60 with 50mm f/1.4 along as a control. The Pentax blew it away. Really obvious when I scanned the negs and looked at them 1:1 in The Gimp (Photoshop clone).

Since that time, I have gone through some serious depression over this. I mean, I was always raised to believe that Canon/Nikon were the ne plus ultra of the pre-AE, pre-AF SLR world (choose Canon or Nikon depending on religion). I sneered at Minolta users, laughed at Mamiya/Sekor dudes, looked pityingly at poor Pentax toters. OK, just kidding about that part. But seriously, I thought the sun rose and set on great Canon prime lenses. I didn't WANT to believe anything else.

I have aquired (seriously) a vintage mint chrome-nose 50mm f/1.4, a breech-lock, and a new-mount-style, FD in 1.8 *and* 1.4. I have half-a-dozen Canon FD 50's. Four 50mm Canon FL 50's. No lie.

Stopped down to f/8, they all seem the same, Pentax and Canon, f/1.8 and f/1.4.

However, from wide-open to f/4, the Pentax rules. Flat out.

From f/4 to f/8, the Pentax will make you cry. Critical sharpness out to the corners and contrast like a big dog.

Stop down further and they all look alike.

For what it may be worth, I like the Canon bokeh wide-open better.

But it is so hard for me now to look at a scan of a neg from my Canon 50's. Just not good enough, is all.

The other night, I shot an old Minolta SRT-102 with a ROKKOR-X 50mm f/1.7, and it looks like crud, even though the lens is crystal clear and I took lots of time to get focus right. Canon whups up on it. Hooray - but unfortunately, my Pentax beats my Canon like a gong.

Here's a comparo I did between two film types (I am trying to sell one of them, ignore that). I shot all of them with the same S-M-C lens, various apertures. You can click and see them bigger. No clean-up, not even balancing. Just scanned, resized, and posted online.

http://www.mattocksphotography.com/era_film/comparo/

If someone wants to take issue and say that their Canon glass is better, I'm cool with that. But I made the best effort I could to find even one specimin of a Canon FD-mount 50mm lens that could equal my Pentax, and failed. Sadly.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

[nightfly]

Cool! Is that a rocking Rabbi?

It's better than that. He's a Hasidic jewish guy who sings reggae. He's gotten pretty popular recently and just came out with a new album. I'm not a huge reggae fan but my friends who are say he's pretty well respected in the reggae world. Part of this is that the Rastafarian religion considers Rasta's the lost tribe of Israel.

In any case he's a great performer and the story behind those pictures is that it was a boxing match and one of the boxers was an orthodox Russian Jew who is a big fan of Matisyahu and had him play for his ring walk and then a few songs afterwards. A friend who works in boxing invited me to the fight that day so the Pentax with the 50 1.4 was the fastest lens I had so grabbed it. Great time.

[anandi]

Bill,
Those shots are pretty amazing. Nice thing about the pentax glass is that it can fit onto a *ist DSLR at some point. You mentioned that you did incident metering on the subjects - how did you do this for the Garage and Car? Wondering if you walked up to the car or whether you took a closer reading off of something similar or what. I'm trying to understand how to use an incident meter outside of the house effectively.

Cheers.

[Dougg]

Pentax has a long history of emphasizing optical excellence, with Zeiss as their quality target. The Super-Multi-Coated Takumars introduced about 1970 were their best yet, and featured a mechanical f-stop communication with the last of the M42 bodies, the Spotmatic F, ES, and ESII, for open-aperture metering. (They also work fine in the older way on the older stop-down bodies).

After the bayonet-mount came along in 1975, the basic body structure and the lens construction were direct continuations of the previous models. At this point they mostly dropped the "Takumar" lens name, substituting "Pentax", and the body model designations were all "K-"something; K2, KX, KM, and K1000. So these lenses were thought of as "K" mount.

The cameras had become larger and heavier in these years, and maybe spurred on by the little Olympus OM, Pentax began offering more compact models with "M" in the name... ME, MX, etc, and a line of more compact M lenses. While the MX developed a devoted following, and the M lenses were excellent, many users still preferred the "K" lenses as perhaps being more solidly made and more sophisticated optically, without the M compromises for size and weight. These "K" lenses were not marked as such, just SMC Pentax and not SMC Pentax-M, and sell for more in the used market. BTW, any bayonet-mount lens marked "SMC Takumar" like one variety of the 2.5/135mm is a further simplified price-leader.

The KA mount was a later development, I think at the time of the Super Program, adding body control of the lens aperture and an A setting on the aperture ring. And an "F" in the lens designation indicated auto-focus. And here I fade out, not having paid much attention to detail developments since! Our most modern 35mm Pentax is one of my wife's remaining battered LX bodies, the other gone missing, and it needs to be sent to Pentax in hopes it can be refurbished. I use a K2DMD, an MX, an ES and ESII, a Spotmatic Motor, an H3, and a 1958 model K with its slow-speed shutter dial separately mounted on the front as with a classic Leica or Canon RF.

All their lenses have a little rattle when shaken, surely due to the auto-diaphragm parts not being under tension with the lens off the camera, and I recall this same question also coming up about the big 6x7 Pentax lenses at Photo.net...

[bmattock]

Bill,
Those shots are pretty amazing. Nice thing about the pentax glass is that it can fit onto a *ist DSLR at some point. You mentioned that you did incident metering on the subjects - how did you do this for the Garage and Car? Wondering if you walked up to the car or whether you took a closer reading off of something similar or what. I'm trying to understand how to use an incident meter outside of the house effectively.

Cheers.

Yes, I put the lens on my Pentax *ist DS all the time - though somewhat less so since I got my SMC-A 50mm f/1.7. I have a M42->P/K adapter. Special note on those - buy them from Pentax, the 'generic' brands are crap and get stuck, very frustrating.

As to incident metering - when you are outdoors, as long as your subject is not in shade or too far away, the same light falls on you as falls on the subject. So use the incident meter as if you were the subject and there you go. However, in my case, I was able to physically walk up to the subjects, so I did, and metered that way.

Remember, with a reflective (or spot) meter you are taking a meter reading from the light reflected from your subject. With an incident meter, you are taking a reading from the light source itself, where it falls on the subject. As long as you are not under a cloud or a shadow or something, the light that falls on you is the same as the light that falls on your subject.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

[aad]

I really like my Pentax SLR outfit, my M50/1.7 has literally been around the world with me. I almost bought an LX-twice-lately, just in case my MEF stops working.

[Kim Coxon]

Sorry to be pedantic but there are 3 main versions. The first is the SMC Takumar with a bayonet mount and is perhaps the best of the 3. Sometimes known as the K series but labeled SMC Pentax. The M version was made a bit more compact and some think the optical performace is not quite as good. LAbeled SMC-M. The A is the same optical formula as the M but with the addition of the A setting. Personally although there is little difference in optical performance, I don't think it is constructed as well and doesn't have the same feel.

All the Pentax "normal" primes are detailed here http://www.bdimitrov.de/kmp/lenses/primes/normal/index.html

Kim

There are two of them, the A and the M. The A has the 'auto' setting for later AE-capable Pentaxes (ME, etc). M is 'manual'. I only have a 50mm f/1.7 A, not an M and not a 1.4 (too expensive)! I find the 50mm f/1.7 SMC-A to be a fantastic lens as well. I have not yet compared the S-M-C 50mm f/1.4 and SMC-A 50mm f/1.7, but I am sure it would come up only slightly less well-off than the master.

I have heard that some people prefer the M and some the A, but I don't know. All I know is that I can use the A on my Pentax *ist DS in full auto mode and that makes me happy as a clam. Great lens for that - beats ANY kit zoom, and makes the already-small *ist DS even smaller.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

[Jerevan]

A bit off-topic: The f1.4 Takumar (M42) is one of my all-time favorite lenses. When I bought it together with my Pentax I didn't know anything about its performance - but I still got after 5 years. That says something of its qualities - I have had more cameras passing thru my hands than I will admit. And I don't plan to sell it, either. I just had to check mine too - a slight rattling sound when I tilt it forward. Second best SLR lens is the f2 Nikkor-H 50, but that's a different story... :)

[bmattock]

Sorry to be pedantic but there are 3 main versions. The first is the SMC Takumar with a bayonet mount and is perhaps the best of the 3. Sometimes known as the K series but labeled SMC Pentax. The M version was made a bit more compact and some think the optical performace is not quite as good. LAbeled SMC-M. The A is the same optical formula as the M but with the addition of the A setting. Personally although there is little difference in optical performance, I don't think it is constructed as well and doesn't have the same feel.

All the Pentax "normal" primes are detailed here http://www.bdimitrov.de/kmp/lenses/primes/normal/index.html

Kim

OK, I'm sure you are right! I know more about Canon lenses, but I sure like my M42 Pentax.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

[ChrisPlatt]

The Pentax 50/55 f/1.4 lenses are indeed venerated,
but many of us think the f/1.8 and 1.7's are even better.
And the f/2.0 "economy" models are prolly the best
lenses available in terms of image quality vs. cost.

In short, Pentax never sold a bad 50mm lens...

"Excelsior, you fathead!"
-Chris-

[bmattock]

The Pentax 50/55 f/1.4 lenses are indeed venerated,
but many of us think the f/1.8 and 1.7's are even better.
And the f/2.0 "economy" models are prolly the best
lenses available in terms of image quality vs. cost.

In short, Pentax never sold a bad 50mm lens...

"Excelsior, you fathead!"
-Chris-

I cannot make absolute statements with regard to which Pentax 50mm lens might be best. However, going from my own sample of two lenses (!), the 1.4 M42 is not only better than the 1.7 SMC-A, it is better than any other lens I have ever used.

I will certainly agree that they certainly seem to be winners all the way around.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

[nightfly]

I have to disagree about the f/2 version. It's not a bad lens for the cost but it is nowhere near the 1.4 version in terms of image quality. I've had both and used for long periods of time and had no problem selling the f/2 when I got rid of the K100 it came with but although I've since aquired a Leica, I don't think I'd ever get rid of the 1.4 and the Pentax MX it's attached to. The prices for this stuff just aren't even close to how good the equipment really is.