Impulse Buy Spotmatic

Just bought from E Bay what seems like a top quality Spotmatic 1000. Terrible impulse `cos it looked so good! Would welcome some pointers for M42 lenses. Are there any particular makes to avoid? Or more to the point what are the best ones to go for?

I bought a Spotmatic on impulse about 40 years ago

Hi Algi

What do you park on the lens mount?

Pentax always looks best!

Seriously, Lot of nice Pentax glass, various good Pentacon lenses, Russian offerings can be cheap and good. With an M42 mount there are so many!

There is a Takumar 85mm on ebay now for a BIN price of £339.82 or a Russian Helios 58mm running at £17.99 with 5 mins to go.

Try sticking m42 in the search on ebay and see what comes up!

The Helios M44 lenses are usually good value and most are OK.

You could look for a Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar (50mm) or Flecktogon (35mm) if you fancy top German glass.

Failing that then the Super Takumar/Takumar lenses are the originals.

Or just visit the local charity shops and grab any M42 lenses to play with.

That's what I did

Chinons are quite cheap. Yashica's are very good and cheap because
the don't have a Man/Auto switch and can't all be modified for digital.
Possibly the best f/1.7's wide open.

Russian lenses are excellent especially the 85mm and 135mm Jupiters and 50mm Helios's.

The classic lens triplet of the era would have been a 28mm, 50mm and 135mm.

Look for anything sensibly priced with Takumar in the name, ideally Super Takumar or SMC/Super-Multi-Coated Takumar as the aperture on these will stop down and open automatically (as opposed to the earlier Auto Takumar where you had to re-cock it, and the even earlier preset lenses where you have to stop down manually before pressing the shutter and open again after).

I'd suggest looking for a Super Takumar 55mm - the f1.8 and f2 are essentially identical apart from the maximum aperture, but if you can have an f1.8 for sensible money then go for it. There's also a 50mm f1.4 but that goes for much more money.

The Super Takumar 135mm f3.5 is plentiful and a fine performer.

For a wide angle look for the Super Takumar 28mm f3.5 or 35mm f3.5.

That will give you a top quality lens line-up, but there are loads of M42 lenses about to try if you can find them cheaply.

So much so that some of the lenses are only f2 because a baffle is inserted in the lens to reduce the maximum aperture. Add a different aperture ring and we have the f2 version!

The Helios lenses are 58mm f/2 not 50mm

I think that the SP1000 came with the SMC Tak 55/2 as standard originally, so you'd have a matched pair if you could get one of these at a reasonable price. It's a very good standard lens.

For me though, the SuperTak 50/1.4 is the King of the Hill for standards - and you can pick them up at a reasonable price if you keep your eyes open. I bought one a while back for around £40, and while the action is a little sloppy with age, the glass is fine. Then a couple of months ago, I got an ESII (chrome version) with a SuperTak 50/1.4 fitted to it from *B*y, and all for £26! The glass is excellent and the focussing of the lens is in much better shape than the first one I bought too.

You've been lucky with the 1.4s. I've been wanting a S-M-C Tak 50/1.4 for my ES/ESII but they have usually gone for over £100... I'm in no rush though, so one day...

K.

Thanks everyone for the help. I found a SMC Takumar 55 F2 for £24 ish. I will make a list of those you have all mentioned and trawl the net. So to speak.

Thanks loads Cedric

Good luck and enjoy,

You'll be looking at B&W film and developing next..

...trust me, I know!

Aha! been down the developing and printing route when I had a ME Super. Sad to say I dumped all the kit when we moved house and I went "Digital." MISTAKE!! Oh well that`s learning. So I collected the SP from the Post Office today. Looks really champion now to find a cell to power the meter. Some advice here from SP owners would be appreciated. Spent ages today searching through jewelers and the like but no known equivalent came up for the mercury cell. If I found a button cell that fits I guess it would be a slightly higher voltage than the original mercury version. Would that be a problem?

Cedric

It's been so long since I used any of my M42 gear that I'm selling some on eBay.uk this Sunday and the next. One of the reasons for the popularity of Pentax throughout the screwmount era was the quality of the coatings and the smoothness of focusing, compared with a few other brands. And you might say, why settle for less!

The Helios, and other Russian lenses, are good lenses, sometimes. But the Meyer Optik range are equal to the Zeiss (IMHO) and never seem to have the Zeiss sticky focus problem that sooo many old Zeiss lenses suffer from. Grease that turns to soap!

The only two M42s that I'm keeping to use on my PK bodies are a Zeiss Biotar 58/2 and a Meyer Orestor 100/2.8. Both good, no excellent, portrait lenses. They usually go for a price these days.

I think you'll find that the SR45 (Maplins) will serve for a Spotmatic with a small rubber spacer to keep it in place. At worst you'll find that the meter underexposes by one stop - but it will be consistent.

Here's a link to one of them ...
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/230659960714?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m...