200mm F3.5 SUPER TAKUMAR (72) MANUAL FOCUS TELEPHOTO LENS (GD)

Specifications

Pentax Super-Takumar 200mm f/3.5 SM

The 200mm lens is considered to be a medium telephoto lens.  This is good for wildlife, sports and news action photography.  It is light enough for hand-held telephoto shots.   The lens is compact and lightweight.

Features.  This powerful telephoto lens has been designed with hand-held photography in mind. Length and weight has therefore been kept to a minimum, and special emphasis has been given to camera balance.  The low distortion makes for a clear-cut image in the viewfinder and excellent color photography characteristics.  All in all this lens is the perfect answer for powerful telephoto enthusiasts who wish to avoid the tripod.

Main uses.  The powerful telephoto effect of 200mm lenses brings distant objects to close-up range and effectively brings out those dwarfed backgrounds.  This lens is thus ideally suited to scenics and fast-action sports, and is at home in all telephoto fields.

Above information obtained from here.

Asahi Optical began manufacturing specialized lenses in 1919, and has been producing lenses for general photography since 1932, twenty years before the Pentax, the first SLR camera from Japan - was manufactured. Painstaking hand craftsmanship, the highest quality raw materials and the most advanced technological know-how are combined in the manufacture of each Super-Takumar.

In the beginning, lens design required logarithmic tables, slide rules- and great patience. It often took three competent designers several years of steady work to complete the computation of a single 4-element lens. Today, Asahi utilizes the most modern electronic computer equipment which performs extremely complicated calculations very rapidly and with great accuracy.

Fine optics alone cannot make a superior lens; the mechanical components are equally important. Lens barrels of Super-Takumar lenses are precision machined for accurate positioning of all elements. Tolerances are so tight you have to break a vacuum to disassemble some elements. Each Super Takumar has dust and moisture-proof seals and a special diaphragm damper that cuts down on wear, vibration and bounce so you get consistent aperture openings.

All mechanical components are precision machined to microscopic tolerances. Specially lubricated, wear-resistant metals assure consistently accurate apertures year after year. Screw mounts are the most precise method of holding a lens firmly in place. Perfectly matched threaded mountings on Super- Takumar make changing lenses quick and easy - even in the dark.

A nice large 200mm tele lens in M42 mount. the advantage of being in an M42 mount, means it can be adapted to a large variety of different bodies, nikon, canon, sony, 4/3, micro 4/3, pentax etc etc.. The F3.5 aperture is only 2/3 stops away from an F2.8, but weight and price of this lens is way less than buying a nikon or canon 70-200F2.8.. At wide open it gives decent image quality but improvements can be seen when stopped down to F5.6.. This lens is definitely good value for money if one doesnt mind manual focusing.

Image taken with lens by LENS.sg staff: