Asahi Pentax M 50mm f1.7 SMC - lens review

 When I found this lens at the usual flea market, where I’ve found a number of my vintage lenses, I bought it immediately, partially because of Mark Holtze’s amazing videos about the Super Takumars, but also because I’ve been actually looking for some Pentax lenses for a couple years, after I missed a good deal at the same flea market.

 This lens is very compact, almost pancake size, being only 32mm long when collapsed and 41mm when extended it is quite smaller than similar lenses from other brands, like the Konica Hexanon 50mm 1.7, the Canon FD 50mm 1.8 and the Yashica ML 50mm f1.7; only the well known Konica Hexanon 40mm 1.8 is a bit shorter.

 The body is made of both metal and plastic, keeping down the weight to around 190 grams. Even the front thread is smaller, with a 49mm diameter, surrounding the beautiful Super Multi Coated front element.

 The iris has six blades, the aperture is clicked and goes from f1.7 to f22. The focusing ring has a rubberized texture and it turns somewhere around 230 and 240 degrees.

 Pentax lenses have inverted, or anti clockwise, focus and aperture. Flange distance for K-mount (also known as PK) lenses is 45,46mm and adapters for mirroless cameras are readily available.

 Many old lenses are quite soft wide, we like them that way, but this one is fairly sharp even at f1.7. Chromatic aberration is not really an issue, I've seen a little bit here and there, but usually it's almost completely absent.

 I like lenses that can focus quite close, even if they aren’t macro, and this, being a 50mm with a minimum focusing distance of 45 centimeters, well, it's not half bad but you have to remember that at f1.7 it let's a whole lot of light in, but also makes harder to focus properly on very close subjects, so you might want to stop it down to f2.8 or even f4.

 I've gotta admit, I really enjoy shooting with this lens. The focusing is smooth and precise, the aperture ring works perfectly and, something that I don't really say much, I really like the colors of this lens and so far, among the various lenses I've reviewed, there's been only a few of which I really liked the colors, maybe because there were weird and/ot somewhat different, but this Pentax produces really warm images. Plus, especially at that f1.7 aperture, the background boke is really smooth.

 At the end of the day, for me the Asahi Pentax M 50mm f1.7 SMC is a great lens, and it has earned its place in my set; in fact, I really hope to find some more lenses in this series and build a little kit.

 As always, let me know your experience with this lens, if you have any question feel free to ask in the comments below and don’t forget to check the full video for all the samples.