Obviously from a Fun Guy.

Takumar is a brand name of pentax and all the lenses were originally marked Takumar. A screw thread Takumar, Super Takumar or SMC Takumar lens is a top class lens.

Later on a few "budget" Takumar (Bayonet) lenses were made by Pentax, but not in very long telephotos.

I think that's not quite right though. Certainly later on models were always supplied with the Invercone. I'm not sure how much it was an afterthought, but part of early design. It may be that originally it was an accessory, and I'll try to find out when I have a moment or two to delve into my archive of old magazines.

If you mean the 500mm mirror lens then it will usually take T2 adapters and Pentax ones are readily available.

These are really good lenses and it will be interesting to hear how they perform on digital.

Prinz and Prinzflex were indeed trade marks of Dixons, from the days when they were camera dealers. Budget ranges that have little to offer on digital, but no better or worse than any other 1970s budget offerings.

Don't forget there are many more menu options in P rather than the limited choice in Greeen Mode.

There was a period of time when the invercones, usually missing from secondhand sales) were highly sought after, as were the meters. The meters are accurate (they do drift with time) and need no batteries. However, the acceptance angle is huge so they need to be used with care. The sensitivity is also less than we are used to now.

The invercone, which clips over the meter cell, means that you can point the meter at the light source (the sun perhaps) and measure the light falling on the subject as opposed to the light reflected from it. When we do this it makes no difference if the object is black, white or any other shade or colour. The possibility is for extremely accurate metering for colour transparency work.

In reality, I don't think this is necessary any more. Camera meters are faster responding, more sensitive and more accurate than ever and the inconvenience of a separate meter is totally unecessary. It's much quicker to bracket our exposures if we need to.

Hope that helps!

I would avoid vaseline on the camera as it's the very devil to remove. I only ever applied vaseline once to a filter to get a soft focus effect. Never again...

This is actually a bad idea these days as many zooms do not hold focus when we zoom. Technically, they are not true zooms, but variable focal length lenses.

The kit lens will show this very clearly - focus at one length and then zoom, watching how the image blurs.