Since march, I kind of slip a comment here and there without having
presented myself until now. (My english is kind of slippery too.) I
live in Quebec City. I've been on Pentax since '83.
I began with my father's Contaflex some years before and found
myself, a young anthropology student, travelling with 2 Canonets in
'82 when I met a hometown guy who recommended an MX as an eventual
SLR, a small impressive camera, he could have said. From there my
mind was set on this one. While in southern Mexico (good to feel
warm weather in january...), a sudden currency devaluation cut all
prices in two (for us). So I could afford the 2 most common
non-normal M lenses (28mm & 135mm) - found in a small town ! -
knowing I would get a MX body as soon as possible. I went to New
York at spring time to see museums and get a cheap MX. Prices were in
display so I first went into that store where the price was the
lowest and told the seller that I noted his price on the MX was
surprisingly low. The guy went mad (thought I was implying something
unclear about his merchandise) and almost kicked my ass to
immediately get me out of his store. Welcome New York ! (Paris is
almost as bad... not Len of course). I finally got a body for 130$
if I remember well. Found a new old stock M 50/1.4 in Quebec and I
was set for a love story that would last and last until now...
Who's got the time to read all that? I'll go faster and drop the
romantic part.
As I found SMC Takumar cheaper and easier to get, I switched to these
and eventually acquired a bunch of them but in real nomadic life used
most of the time a 28mm, a 55mm and a 100mm macro (the best lens I've
ever had). Put on MXs, Spotmatics or a combination of both (always 2
bodies: chrome + B&W).
Today I do it with LXs and K lenses if in town (classic progression
of focals: 24mm, 35mm, 50-55mm, 85m, 135mm, 200mm, 300mm) or M lenses
if travelling ("steeper" progression: 28, 50, 100 mac, 200 ; thinking
about trying super-lite hiking kit 20, 40, 85 + K6-2X + achromatic
close-up lens + reverse ring + AF-200T off body + reflector, table
tripod).
I'm not a professionnal photographer. I've taken mostly Kodachrome
and Kodak B&W and mostly while travelling (Latin America). I'm
beginning to feed some to a Coolscan & print on an Epson 1200 with
MIS inks and... (I feel wiziwiged...) I'm very very far from some
Cibachromes I did one day. For the last three years I did mostly
portraits of local live musicians on Tri-X.
Having collected much documentation on Pentax stuff, I was able to
collaborate with Boz for some time. I've read good parts of the
Pentax (old) archives (I'd like so much to have a copy of it...) but
stopped reading a year ago being too busy with depression. (I'm back
on my feet, cameras on my back.)
I have a good "superficial" knowledge of Pentax manual focus era
equipment (not Asahiflex though) but would like to identify better
the optical character of Asahi lenses I meet. I plan to do some
real-life matches between a number of lenses (taking the same photo
with 2 or more lenses, in a row). Bokeh is important to me, also
color balance, contrast & flare resistance and vignetting. I still
don't know how to put JPEGs on the WEB to show some results... what a
shame...
For example, I compared an old Takumar 200/3.5 (I read that in the
sixties, some Nikoners of that era had this lens modified to fit
their F cameras because it was faster than Nikon's) with Pentax-M
200/4. I scan the slides at 2700dpi with color stable Coolscan (6
multi-pass with Vuescan) and check details. Have Pentax done better
with the M lens, 20 years later ? I'd say yes and no... Optical
performance (drawn from ONE "light" situation, one f-stop ; no bokeh
comparison, no low-contrast shot or flare-prone situation etc.) is
practically the same BUT! ...M-lens is much smaller and lighter. In
a corner, I could see the M lens does have a little bit more
contrast, maybe because of lower internal reflections due to SMC, I
don't know. Color balance is identical.
Some of you will laugh at this exercice. I do take photos mostly for
fun and don't care about the optical character of a lens when i use
it. But I think I might find something comparing lenses in
real-life situations. I don't know what. Maybe nothing. Wow...
that would be something!
Andre
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