Non SMC Lenses

Hi, As a new boy to forums please excuse me if I put a foot wrong.

Has anybody any experience of non SMC Pentax lenses and are they worth the bag room?

Chailey Chuck

It depends which lenses you mean and what you want to use them for.

The pre-SMC Super Takumar screw thread lenses are fantastic quality and well worth using. Many are the same design as the later SMC versions and only differ in the coatings. Manufacturers made superb lenses before coating was invented and certainly before multi-coating.

The bayonet Pentax Takumars are simplified versions of the A series lenses - fewer elements and no SMC. They would be fine for small prints but at greater enlargements you would tell the difference. I wouldn't bother with these, especially as the SMC versions are not much more expensive at today's second hand values.

Welcome to the forums - hope you enjoy contributing!

also the non-SMC lenses seem to vary somewhat sample to sample.

For example, I have 2 copys of the Takumar Bayonet F2.5 135mm

One of them is a great lens, sharp as a tak (pardon the pun) but has unfortunatly developed sticky aperture syndrome and is now jammed on F2.5

The other is significantly poorer in general performance and very soft wide open, I never bother to use it.

Similarly I have heared lots of people say very nasty things about the Pentax-A 28-80 zoom, but my Dads copy of this lens consistantly produces stunning shots good enough to blow up to 10x8 and beyond.


As a general rule though I'd avoid anything Pentax in K mount which doesn't have SMC somewhere in its name.

Many thanks for your comments.