6x7 300mm lens

Let me introduce myself, again. I'm Phil and I'm really like photography and I really like the Pentax camera, i.e. that's why I joined the Pentac User. Being just retired, my bi-weekly retirement cheque and what little savings I have, don't go very far, however, I can afford two cameras, a K20D and a K-x which I paid about US 250 each for, second hand from Japan. I would like to buy a K-5 IIs but I'm trying to sell my K-x first. Well, that's enough history, now to the point.

This post is about lenses which I find also extremely interested to trial and test of which I have to buy first. I have a Pentax DA 18-55 II mm lens, a DA 55-300mm lens. a Pentax-A 50mm F1.7 lens, however one of my first purchases along with a k100D Pentax (which I sold and regret) was a Tamron 28-200mm lens. Well this was the earlier lens (very inexpensive) and, well; I'm sure you know about this lens. It doesn't get rave reviews. But recently I purchased an 18-200 Tamron lens; fantastic lens; I really like it and still have it, using it on my K-x right now. I brought this because I got tired of switching between the two DA lenses. I'm trying to sell both the DA 18-55 II lens and the Tamron 28-200 lens here in New Zealand along with the K-x camera.

But, anyway, along with photography, I've gotten into bird photography. I used my DA 55-300mm lens (a very good lens) and my K20D camera but I started to notice other people with much bigger lenses that are also into bird photography. The 55-300mm lens is good but I still couldn't get the pictures that I wanted. Others had high end 300mm F2.8 lenses costing lots of money. Some of them 2000 dollars US if not more on e-bay. This was well out of my budget range, so after a little research and a chance buying, I ordered a 6x7 300mm lens from Japan. I also got a connector to work on my K20D. The lens looks new but of course it's manual with F stops from 4-45 and it is a large lens but no bigger than some of these high end 300mm F2.8 lenses I mentioned above. To my surprise (and I may be wrong) the F4 setting seems to be equal to about an F2.8 because of the amount of light it lets in. The lens is fast, fast, fast. It's different than my DA 55-300mm which is of course fully automatic and AF; But the 6x7 300mm (SMC Takumar) takes really good photographs, as good, if not better than the DA 55-300.

I paid US 120 dollars for the lens, including shipping to New Zealand. I feel that I got something just as good, if not better than some of these high end expensive lenses. Am I missing something? Is this something new which something I have discovered? Or is it something all of you old pros out there knew all along? Why do I not hear about this from others?

So anyway...what are your comments on this?

I have a Pentax 67ii medium format film camera, and some lenses. The last lens I acquired for the system was the SMC Pentax 67 300/4, this is the last incarnation of this lens. I have tried the lens briefly on my Pentax K20D with the original Pentax 67-K adapter. The resulting images were quite promising, and not unlike the images I can expect from my FA* 300/4.5 lens. The FA* tele is very good, probably as good as the modern DA 300mm (?), and the fact that the old 67 300/4 performed this well on an aps-c DSLR amazed me.

The main drawback with this lens is that the minimum focussing distance is maybe 5 meters, I cannot remember the exact numbers. Anyway, the tele is not very useful for photographing objects close to you. The other main drawback is its weight, it is very heavy. The last negative thing with this lens is the lack of a tripod collar.

I intend to use the lens on my 67ii camera, and on this camera there is an issue of mirror induced vibration with slowish shutter speeds. The 300/4 does not balance well on the camera on a tripod due to its weight, and without a tripod collar the lens functions best hand held.

Here is a shot from the 67ii + SMC 300/4 shot on Kodak Porta 400 colour negative film. Camera hand held, lens at f16.