Too many typos. Sorry about that. It should read.
Takumar lenses were special in the screwmount era. ( I won't go into that here. It's a whole other topic. But some of them are very good.) In the bayonet mount days, which means the late 1970s and beyond,"takumar" became a badge applied to somewhat inferior, budget lenses. So Takumar-A and Takumar-F are not the equal of SMC Pentax-A or SMC Pentax-F lenses. All series lenses were preceded by the Pentax name. What we call the "K" lenss, a series that included some of the finest manual focus lenss ever made were designated simply SMC Pentax. There was no letter attached. The next series downsized the lenses to go with the compact M cameras. Some were perhaps compromised, but many are very fine lenses. These were designated SMC Pentax-M. The next series was, for the most part, as compact as the M lenses but included some improvements along with an electrical contact that advised the camera in regard to the aperture chosen. These were designated SMC Pentax-A. Somewhat later, one or two lenses were made as an early attempt at autofoocus. These had a drive mechanism in the lens and depended on a motor in the camera. They were designated SMC Pentax AF. This short lived series was soon replaced with lenses that had a drive motor in the lens. This first series of true Pentax autofocus lenses was designated SMC Pentax F. Next were the SMC Pentax FA lenses. These were a refinement on the F series, at least cosmetically if not functionally. However many of them are very good. Finally, there are some digital specific lenses, designated SMC Pentax DA and some more bargain lenses designated SMC Pentax FAJ. To my mind, the most outstanding accomplishments in terms of breakthrough opticals will be found amoung the very early SMC Pentax "K" lenses and the SMC Pentax-A lenses. But that's just me, and I could be wrong.
On Sep 1, 2004, at 10:35 PM, Nenad Djurdjevic wrote:
On Sep 1, 2004, at 10:56 PM, Paul Stenquist wrote:
a long paragraph full of typos
