I know quite a bit, so does heldown here on dgrin. Most of the super taks are great. Right now i have the screw mount versions of the 28 f/3.5, 50 f/1.4 and 200 f/4.
Soon to be joined by the 35 f/3.5, 55 1.8, 105 f/2.8, 200 f/3.5 and 300 f/4 courtesy of HD.
Bottom line: they are better than most modern consumer zooms for sharpness, and can be either better or worse as far as color fringing and flare, depending on what modern zoom you compare them too. You'll need an adapter for your dSLR and they of course are all manual focus (nice smooth focusing on all of mine) with manual stopping down. One more thing: they are nice and light for their respective focal lengths.
Things to watch out for in any old lense: Clouding, yellowing of elements (can be resolved), fungus, sticky aperture blades, less than smooth focus.
I see that you shoot Minolta. If you are familiar with fully manual operation, you might feel right at home with a simple adapter to fit these lenses to your camera.
As a rule, I prefer "SMC" lenses best, followed by "Super Takumar" and then Takumar. I found that the SMC lenses are usually of high resolution and high contrast, with the Supers somewhat less contrast, but still very good resolution.
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http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/forum.asp?forum=1036 Search m42, screwmount, super takumar
I know quite a bit, so does heldown here on dgrin. Most of the super taks are great. Right now i have the screw mount versions of the 28 f/3.5, 50 f/1.4 and 200 f/4.
Soon to be joined by the 35 f/3.5, 55 1.8, 105 f/2.8, 200 f/3.5 and 300 f/4 courtesy of HD.
Bottom line: they are better than most modern consumer zooms for sharpness, and can be either better or worse as far as color fringing and flare, depending on what modern zoom you compare them too. You'll need an adapter for your dSLR and they of course are all manual focus (nice smooth focusing on all of mine) with manual stopping down. One more thing: they are nice and light for their respective focal lengths.
Things to watch out for in any old lense: Clouding, yellowing of elements (can be resolved), fungus, sticky aperture blades, less than smooth focus.
I still use some older screw mount lenses on Canon dSLRs.
Samples of an SMC 50mm, f1.4:
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=38398
I see that you shoot Minolta. If you are familiar with fully manual operation, you might feel right at home with a simple adapter to fit these lenses to your camera.
As a rule, I prefer "SMC" lenses best, followed by "Super Takumar" and then Takumar. I found that the SMC lenses are usually of high resolution and high contrast, with the Supers somewhat less contrast, but still very good resolution.
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