SMC Takumar 35mm 3.5

Impressions: Takumar 35mm is another of my favorite lenses.  Besides its beautiful colors, this tiny little lens is biting sharp.  As I was researching this lens for today's blog, I came across an interesting snippet of information on mflenses stating that the Takumar "is a copy of the Voigtlander Skoparex 35mm" and that "Meyer Primagon 4.5/35 is very similar in design to the Skoparex - they basically took a 4 element Tessar type and stuck a large extra element in front to give it a wider fov".  This snippet explains why I love the pictures from both Takumar and Primagon and why there is so much difficulty in adopting these lenses to Canon 5DII.  One big difference between Takumar and Primagon is in their extreme corners where Takumar is sharp and Primagon is not.   Takumar 35mm typically sells for around $40 on ebay.

Here are some pictures with Takumar 35mm and Canon 5DII:

Mod:  This lens is not compatible with Canon 5DII.

Top Tip:   The lenses with infinity focus / mirror interference issues can still be used on 5DII in live view mode.  Here is how: Focus the lens at the closest focusing distance, engage live view, focus, take picture, focus at the closest distance, turn off live view.

I no longer own this lens because it was too difficult to use on 5DII.  It now serves duty on my brother's Fuji camera.  Below please find a picture from web.

Rating: 8 out of 10.