Duds?

[Sven]

I bought two lenses for what I thought were bargain prices, but now I'm leaning more towards that it was "you get what you pay for" prices.

The first one is a Takumar Bayonet 2.8/135 at 40$ and the second one is a Meyer Domiplan 2.8/50 for 4 $ (less than a hamburger).

The Takumar looks solid and works perfectly from a mechanical point of view, but I'm not happy it's sharpness and color saturation. It can also produce CA in some situations.
I had less expectations on the Meyer and it's probably still worth more than a hamburger, but it's rather soft and I will probably not use it much. It had a stuck F-stop mechanism, but I managed to take the blades out and de-grease them, so that part works now.
Anyway, are these lenses known to be less than average performers or did I just get bad samples?

Some samples
Takumar


Meyer (This was before blade cleaning so the lens is wide open)


Picture resized - click on the image for the full size. Please observe the max width of 900px or post large images in the Oversized Gallery. Thankyou

[F16SUNSHINE]

The domiplan I have is crap others feel the same
That Bayonet Takumar was a low price line from Pentax also known to be crap

Thats a lot of crap you should hold your nose on the way to the bin

[Attila]

Domiplan can be pretty good one.

[zewrak]

Haha. I have tried to sell my Domiplan for 10skr and failed. And to be honest, it's not worth it.

Stick to Super Takumars :p. The bayonet ones are black sheeps.

[Sven]

It's easy to get carried away.
And you seem to be proud owners of Domiplans as well

I will try them out bit more, but generally most pictures are worth a better faith than being shot with an inferior lens.
At least I didn't spend a fortune.

Thanks for your replies

[glockman99]

You can always think of those lenses as sort of having a built-in soft-focus filter...Sort of a "glass is 1/2 full" sort of thing.

[zewrak]

[Attila]

http://www.mflenses.com/gallery/v/german/meyer/domiplan_50mm/meyer-optik_gorlitz_domiplan_50mm_f2_8-11.jpg.html

This is my experience , I think not worst than any other common 50mm lens.

[Sven]

I guess there could be a variation between samples of the Domiplan.
When I took it apart I noticed that the positioning of rear lens didn't look very reliable, only 3 tiny screws fitting into a v-grove both for centering the lens and for positioning it longitudinally. Maybe of no significance but it could also indicate a build standard which could be less repeatable.

Like the soft focus idea!

[Attila]

Meyer made their best lenses before war, I have a few pre-war copy with excellent quality. They made good lenses with stable quality before "Pentacon" years. Yes, Domiplan quality can be very vary, it was a cheap budget lens for that price every copy was ok in any quality. If somebody would take better lens many excellent one was available.

[peterqd]

My Domiplan is simply awful. It was the cheapest option kit lens for my Praktica in 1967, below Tessar and Pancolar. I never took one good picture with it.

[orly_andico]

That's probably a 135/2.5 Takumar Bayonet, which was made from 1980 - 1988. It's a simple 4-element lens. I got mine for $30 (plus shipping).

I did some tests on this Takumar Bayonet. Basically any Takumar Bayonet is a consumer lens. But it's still mechanically very good, to be honest I can tell no difference between this one and an SMC-Pentax M mechanically.

Here's my test: http://orlygoingthirty.blogspot.com/2008/08/pentax-135mm-lens-comparison.html

compared to the SMC-Pentax M 135/3.5.

Seems that at f/4 the Tak-Bayonet is sharper than the SMC-Pentax M.

Or is my focusing off? I put a split-image screen in my K10D but I am not entirely sure if I'm focusing critically enough (the K10D's AF module is also known to be not that accurate so I can't rely on AF confirm).

I also compared the Takumar-A 70-200/4 to the SMC-M 135/3.5 at 135mm and the Tak-A seemed just as sharp.. so either (1) my MF skills really suck; (2) my split-image screen is incorrectly placed (it's a cheap Chinese one and I used tape to adjust it); (3) I have a horrible 135/3.5; or (4) I have a really excellent 70-200/4 which seems unlikely..

[Wormhandler]

I saw the auction and it was in fact a 135mm 2.8 takumar (bayonet).
Never saw one of those before.
The 135mm 2,5 takumar (bayonet) you talk about have a bad reputation but I must say that my copy is excellent. Seems to be in line with your observations. Maybe some CA to mess things up in bad situations. I don't have the 135mm 2,5 k-mount to compare to though.
I will post a few pictures taken with my 135 2,5 (bayonet) if anyone is interested.

/Jan

[orly_andico]

there is a Super-Takumar 135/2.5 (screw mount) which goes for a heck of a lot more money than the T akumar Bayonet

it's also supposed to be much better than the Tak Bayonet, , but to be honest at f/4 i can't say my copy is bad (compared to the 135/3.5 which supposedly has a great reputation "sharper than the Zeiss Jena 135/3.5 some people claim).

here's another test I did:
http://orlygoingthirty.blogspot.com/2008/07/more-lens-testing.html

of course this is only center performance, wide-open at 200mm and f/4 on both lenses.




this photo #1 was taken with the Canon 70-200/4 L IS on EOS 400D.



this photo #2 with the Takumar-A 70-200/4 on Pentax K10D.



The photo from the "L" looks better to me.. by how much I don't know. What do you guys think? of course the "L" costs $1000 and the Tak-A 70-200/4 cost something like $40 (I forget the exact value).

[Sven]

[orly_andico]

Click here to see on Ebay

here's another 135/2.8 Takumar Bayonet.