Up for sale is is an excellent cine-modded and serviced example of a legendary vintage Japanese fast prime lens, the Asahi Pentax Super-Takumar 50mm f/1.4.

This lens and its siblings are considered among the best Japanese-Made "fast fifties" of the SLR era, and are renowned for their sublime rendering and excellent stopped-down sharpness. As such, it remains a highly sought-after lens not only for vintage film shooters, but also modern digital still shooters and digital cinema shooters to this day.

Lens is in nice vintage condition, with light-barrel wear and perfect mechanics. A few tiny cleaning marks in coatings; glass otherwise of scratches/haze/fungus.

Additionally this lens has been UV-treated to remove the Thorium yellowing common to this model resulting in more accurate color rendition and 2/3 of a stop additional light transmission. It has also  been modded for click-free aperture operation for cinema shooters, and has been disassembled and CLAed with full Helical relube and aperture cleaning for ultra smooth performance!

Includes original slid-on metal front cap, and plastic rear cap!

This lens features the very versatile m42 screw mount, which can be used natively on older screw mount-SLR cameras by Pentax, Praktica, etc. and can be adapted for use on most popular Film SLR, DSLR, and mirrorless formats with a glassless adapter (see chart below for digital compatibility). If you have any questions about whether this lens is adaptable to your camera system, please contact me before purchase.

Digital mount compatibility chart

Mount

Adaptable?

Glassless Infinity?

Notes

Canon EF DSLR

Y

Y*

* Some lenses require minor modification for use with Full Frame Canon cameras.

Nikon F DSLR

Y

N


Pentax K DSLR

Y

Y


Sony A DSLR

Y

Y


Panasonic/Olympus 4/3 DSLR

Y

Y


Canon EOS M Mirrorless

Y

Y


Canon EOS R Mirrorless

Y

Y


Fuji X Mirrorless

Y

Y


Leica/Panasonic/Sigma L

Y

Y


Panasonic/Olympus m4/3

Y

Y


Nikon 1 Mirrorless

Y

Y


Nikon Z Mirrrorless

Y

Y


Pentax Q Mirrorless

Y

Y



CLA FAQ:

Q: Why buy a CLAed lens?

Put quite simply, lenses get dirty over time. Many used vintage sold lenses here on eBay are described as “mint condition,” typically meaning they are free of obvious optical flaws like haze or fungus and have a clean-appearing exterior. However, opening them up tells a quite different story. While these lenses may appear tightly built, they nearly all use open designs, which allows substantial amounts of dust, dirt, and grit to enter the lens, where it settles into delicate precision components, adversely affecting the mechanical properties of the lens and leading to increased wear. Furthermore, even in unused samples, lubricants tend to degrade over time, leading to degraded focus action as grease dries out, or slow blades and soiled optics as oil migrates within the lens.

Q: What  services do you perform on the lens before sale?

With the lens disassembled, I perform a full CLA (Clean Lube Adjust). This entails cleaning out any internal and external soiling, cleaning aperture blades of grease that can slowing, re-lubing the focus helical (even seemingly fine "mint" vintage lenses typically have grit and degraded grease in their helicals), and adjusting all components for tightness and accuracy. Where there is extensive dust or internal lens soiling, I will disassemble lens cells and clean off surfaces; however, it is my general philosophy to keep lens elements in their factory position when at all possible to ensure optimum performance.

Q: DUST? What do you mean DUST?

A: All vintage lenses have dust in them. In fact, they had dust in them when they were brand new from the factory! This is because prior to the advent of very modern sealed designs, lenses were not put together in a clean room environment, and the natural static charge of the glass tends to attract dust particles. Coupled with the open designs used in these lenses, it is virtually impossible to find any vintage lens without some degree of dust particles visible when you look closely through the lens. All of my CLA lenses have at minimum the exterior internal cell surfaces wiped with a dust-free, lab-grade optical tissue and then blown off with an air bulb prior to reassembly and thus have a significantly below average amount of dust for a vintage lens.

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