S-M-C Takumar 28/3.5

I’ve got this lens a while ago, but was able to shoot it on a full-frame camera just recently. What can I say? It’s certainly one of the best wide-angle primes in M42 mount. Renders very nice colors, gives excellent contrast and very nice resolution straight from wide open (extreme corners are not that great, yet they are well on-par with Canon’s 24-70L at 28mm). By f/8 it’s pixel-sharp across the frame on a 21 MP body.

It’s a great lens when it comes to shooting in contra light; flare is very minimal. I was unable to produce any purple fringing, which is very nice; some CA are present in the corners, but those are easy to correct in the RAW processor.

Vignetting is stonger than I would like on a wide-angle lens though. I don’t mind vignetting for portraits, but not in landscape shots. Keeping the lens at 49mm filter size may had seemed a good idea at the time, but this design has its drawbacks. Nevertheless, this is a minor headache.

Below are a few pics I shot around my place just before the dusk and in the twilight (the colors are accurate).

#1: Contra Light

#2

#3

#4

#5: The Bokeh Shot

#6

#7: Geometric Distortion close to Zero

UPDATE: I discovered the reason causing vignetting in my previous shots: the aftermarket hood was slightly too narrow; without the hood, the lens still vignettes at 3.5-4, but not at 5.6 and on.

#8

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#10