SMC Takumar 135mm f3.5 vintage lens review

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The Takumar 135mm f3.5 is made of metal, it weights around 330g, it is 88 to 103mm long and it has an external diameter of 58mm, with a 49mm front thread.

The iris has 6 blades, the aperture is clicked and it goes from f3.5 to f22 with half steps. On the side there’s the auto-manual selector for compatible camera bodies.

The focusing ring is textured, it turns 330 degrees and minimum focusing distance is 1.5m.

As we can see on the front element, this was the first series of lenses produced by Asahi with multicoating.

The M42 mount has a flange distance of 45,46mm.

This lens is very compact and light so it feels right at home even on small mirrorless cameras.

The focusing ring is very smooth and the long throw makes it easy to be precise.

Sharpness wide open is good all over the frame and it only gets better by f8.

There is just a bit of Chromatic aberration, mostly in the corners, but it is barely noticeable.

Both saturation and contrast are a bit low and colors are quite neutral.

Specular highlights can show some hard edges, but are mostly big and soft and backgrounds are smooth and somewhat painterly.

Flares and ghosting are very well controlled, even when shining a light directly into the lens.

I have mixed feelings about this lens: sometimes I love the results I get and some others I just don’t and I can’t put my finger on why.

What I can say is that I really like how it renders out of focus backgrounds wide open and the subtle amount of chromatic aberration gives it just that bit more character.



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