SMC Pentax M 50mm 1.4

[bigdaddy]

Hallo everyone,

after seeing the great pictures from Dustin and others with the Helios 44-2, I started looking for one on ebay and ended up with a SMC Pentax 50mm 1.4 K-mount instead. I must say: I am impressed. It produces great bokeh and as far as I can tell is pretty sharp wide open and only costed 85 Euro.

It is fully manual and it is a challenge to nail focus. Luckily, I was able to change my focusing screen to a EG-S, which really helps and the view finder in the 6D big and bright.

The build quality is really impressive and its a joy to use.

Of course, if you are reading this you'll want to see some pictures.

The following pictures are all on a 6D and all @1.4. They were shot in RAW and run through Lightroom with the default settings.

The first two are at 200 ISO and 1/200.
The third one is at 250 ISO and 1/125.

 

[bigdaddy]

Re: SMC Pentax 50mm 1.4

Here are a two 100% crops. The first one is from the third image from my first post.
The second was with a 400D @ISO 200 und 1/30.

 

[e17paul]

Re: SMC Pentax 50mm 1.4

I'm loving the colour of these images. It tempts me to get an adapter to use the lens from my father's K-M, I think from memory it's a 50/1.7. What's the minimum focus distance on the 1.4, it looks pretty close?

Meanwhile, I have my OM 50/1.4 which is also excellent on my 6D, except for the lack of communication with the camera. Old lenses can be surprising great, especially if comfortable with manual exposure and manual focus.

Thanks for posting.

 

[sdsr]

Re: SMC Pentax 50mm 1.4

Lovely photos - and nice timing: I just bought its screwmount SMC Takumar predecessor (I very much like the look and feel of the older focus rings) and am eagerly awaiting its arrival early next week; your photos are making me a bit less patient.... There are some great bargains to be had via manual lenses (though I prefer to use mine on mirrorless Sony - magnification + focus peaking + EVF makes it far easier for me to use them).

 

[bigdaddy]

Re: SMC Pentax 50mm 1.4

Hallo e17Paul,

thanks for the reply. The minimal focus distance is 45 cm. Umfortunatly, k-mount lenses have to be destructively modified to work on a full frame Canon. On APS-C there are no clearence problems, at least on the 400D and 70D I've tested.

I feel the same way about old lenses. In addition to the 50mm I have a 85mm 1.9 SMC Takumar, a 135mm 2.5 SMC Takumar and a Carl Zeiss Jena 200mm 2.8 all in m42 mount. The Takumars are wonderfull wide open. They are a lot better than my nifty fifty or my 24-105L when they are wide open. I plan to post examples from the Takumars and the CZJ when I have some good images that aren't of my kids.

I also have a Porst 135mm 2.8, that is very soft wide open and has what appears to be the typical purple halo from lenese of the same generation when shot wide open. It's build quality is not as good as the Takumars. or the Zeiss. It's general condition is also not as good as the other lenes I've listed here.

bigdaddy

 

[bigdaddy]

Re: SMC Pentax 50mm 1.4

Hallo sdsr,

the m42 mount version has a slightly better reputation than the m version. when i was shopping on ebay i only found the fifftys in k- mount, so that 's what I bought. I know you'll have fun.

The focusing aids you mentioned would be nice, but for now I'm happy with my 6D.

There's a thread for the m42 mount hier as well, I'll be looking forward to some sample images

bigdaddy

 

[Snodge]

Re: SMC Pentax 50mm 1.4

See also this thread: http://www.canonrumors.com/forum/index.php?topic=18707.0

Not sure if it is the same lens, or just very, very similar. Either way, these old m42 lenses are great

 

[bigdaddy]

Re: SMC Pentax 50mm 1.4

Hallo Snodge,

the lens I am referring to here is a k-mount, not m42. The m42 has the thorium element that can turn yellow and has to bleached with uv-light. I think they both make beautiful pictures.

Bigdaddy

See also this thread: http://www.canonrumors.com/forum/index.php?topic=18707.0

Not sure if it is the same lens, or just very, very similar. Either way, these old m42 lenses are great

 

[Snodge]

Ah! Didn't realise there was a difference between mounts! Interesting to know!

 

[DFM]

I've been using these things for years as macro lenses, either reversed or on a set of tubes (or both). They're renowned for image quality, which explains why the prices on eBay have shot up. The radioactive models are not as easy to identify as people think - most of them did have "TAKUMAR" on the front, but there's at least one batch of 50/1.4s that don't:

SMC PENTAX 1:1.4/50 ASHAI OPT. CO. JAPAN = thorium
SMC PENTAX 1:1.4 50mm ASHAI OPT. CO. JAPAN = regular glass

If you're mounting on FF body and don't want to saw off the aperture lever (or you get one with creatures inside), it's not a difficult lens to strip apart. See http://retinarescue.com/pentax50mmf1.4.html

 

[ciucciacapre]

hi, i'm a lucky(maybe) new owner of the asahi regular glass PENTAX 1:1.4 50mm ASHAI OPT. CO. JAPAN , may i be sure that this objective is not radioactive?
lens become yellow anyway? Uranium produce the same yellow effect instead of thorium?

thanks

I've been using these things for years as macro lenses, either reversed or on a set of tubes (or both). They're renowned for image quality, which explains why the prices on eBay have shot up. The radioactive models are not as easy to identify as people think - most of them did have "TAKUMAR" on the front, but there's at least one batch of 50/1.4s that don't:

SMC PENTAX 1:1.4/50 ASHAI OPT. CO. JAPAN = thorium
SMC PENTAX 1:1.4 50mm ASHAI OPT. CO. JAPAN = regular glass

If you're mounting on FF body and don't want to saw off the aperture lever (or you get one with creatures inside), it's not a difficult lens to strip apart. See http://retinarescue.com/pentax50mmf1.4.html