Here it is — the first full manual focus lens I have personally owned in my life! Although I have tried manual focusing while shooting before, it was mainly for video work — fun times! I relied on manual focus because the autofocus for video on the D750 was really sluggish. On top of that, there was no IBIS (in-body image stabilization), so I had to use a gimbal, which made my job even tougher! LOL. I managed to pull it off anyway, and the results turned out pretty good, even if it took lots of takes sometimes!

Fast forward to today, I inherited this legendary piece of glass from a family member who passed away. It came mounted on a Honeywell Pentax Spotmatic film camera. Unfortunately, I accidentally damaged the rewind lever while trying to figure out how to use it. Shame on me 😦

I plan to have the Honeywell Pentax Spotmatic restored so I can use it one day, but for now, I couldn’t resist trying this lens on a mirrorless camera after stumbling upon an adapter on Amazon. It’s called an M42 to Z lens mount adapter. It costs about $23 with a 12% discount at the time of writing. If you are interested in the exact model I used, just comment below and I’ll send you the link.

I played around with this lens for a couple of days and, boy, I loved the results! To be honest, I struggled with manual focusing at first, mainly because of its wide f/1.4 aperture and, of course, my lack of skill when it comes to manually focusing for photography!

It has been a while since I had this kind of reaction to a lens. The last time I felt this way was when I used the Nikkor 35-70mm f/2.8 AF-D. Although that lens was made for film, it autofocuses really well on a DSLR and is tack sharp! Plus, the contrast it produces is something I have not seen anywhere else.

Anyhow, I’ll let you be the judge after seeing the photos I took and decide whether the results meet your standards, eh?

By the way, I think my copy is radioactive. It has that yellow/brown tint on the front element caused by the thorium coating breaking down over time. Also, as you’ll see below, the photos came out really warm! I had to compensate by dialling my white balance down to around 4141 Kelvin or even lower. I’ve also read somewhere that the thorium coating actually helps make the images look sharper. Nice!

All images were edited from Z6 III RAW files into JPEGs with only minimal adjustments — mainly Exposure, White Balance, Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, and Brightness using Capture One. However, I did include one bonus photo where I applied some color grading. I just had to see whether this lens could be a good addition to bring along for a real shoot in the future 🙂

Photo above and below is to test how the lens handled lines and seems to be controlled well although there is a slight tilt into it but not to the extremes like an ultra wide lens have.

Alright, I can’t wait to test this out on portraits! After all, it is a 50mm which is a good focal length for portraits.

Remember, I did tell you about the white balance shifts when using this lens? Well, below, the two images will show you how widely the color shifts vary from each other.

And, now some photos of the actual lens itself. Notice the brown tint at the front element of the lens? Also, I found a serial number at the bottom of the Manual/Auto Aperture switch and from what I read, it is said that this too will tell if the lens is radioactive.

Finally, the photo in which I made some minor colour grading in post to compensate for some of those greenish shadows and super warm highlights…

I guess that’s it for today. I hope the sample images I took will help you learn more about the Super Takumar 50mm f/1.4.

I hope to see you in my next post!

Photography: Chris Carino of Creativity Photo© |Edmonton, AB|May 2026

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