135mm for less than $40 (4 Images)

The Sears M42/manual 135mm f2.8 with 8 aperture blades came in with another Sears 50mm f2, camera bag, M42 2X teleconverter, leather bag, flash and light meter; all for near $40 including shipment. Of course my interest was only for the lenses for my spring flower shots preparation. I had a pretty satisfying use on MD/MC lenses last spring. This year is a start for the use of M42 (Pentax/Universal screwmount) and maybe Exakta manual lenses.

That Sears could have been made by several 3rd party Japanese lens maker in the 60s-70s. Since the bokeh was surprisingly very good (with the use of extension tube), maybe made my Tomioka or other preferred vendor (wishing and researching).

Tried today in between rains on my swaying lavender in my yard. The sharpness was pretty encouraging when the subject is steady. All taken hand held and in jpg.

enjoy,
gil









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Cheers,
gil - San Jose, CA
Cheap Lens, JPG and 100% Handholding Provocateur
Like happiness, photography is often better created than pursued.

Wow, makes me want to get more cheap manual lenses!
Awesome bokeh and pretty darn sharp. It takes skill and you've got them.
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/28533681@N08/

...great images, Gil!
Hope you're fine,
Bernd

Very nice light & selection of background Gil. I think I like the last one the best - more of the critter IF, but still excellent bokeh. Nice little project.

Post like this have me wondering. How many lenses do you have? You seem to enjoy the seeking out of the rare gems as much as the resulting images. And, you always seem to get the best out of your finds.
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AEH
http://aehass.zenfolio.com/
Question: What do you do all week?
Answer: Mon to Fri. Nothing, Sat & Sun I rest!

I think if enough people see these pics, there may be a run on M42 glass on ebay

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Keith
http://keithinsp.smugmug.com/
http://www.pbase.com/themitty/
http://www.picasaweb.google.com/themitty

but hasn't produced anything this nice yet.
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John Dunn
Portraits: http://www.fototime.com/users/[email protected]/Portraits

late response as I am still entangled with job preservation activities that is siphoning out my creative juices : ).
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Cheers,
gil - San Jose, CA
Cheap Lens, JPG and 100% Handholding Provocateur
Like happiness, photography is often better created than pursued.

condition is now occupying most of my time. Let us hope that things will get better and the photographic fun return again to normal. Please be assured that whenever possible, I am still sneaking out to do some tests. Got me now a number of M42 cheap manual lenses : ). Hope things are ok at your side of the world.
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Cheers,
gil - San Jose, CA
Cheap Lens, JPG and 100% Handholding Provocateur
Like happiness, photography is often better created than pursued.

duplicate the findings as soon as weather improves. I get some tips from the http://www.mflenses.com forum, manual lenses section and from basic researches. Actually I already accumulated around 10 M42 manual lenses and the wife is already complaining for these $5 - $50 purchases : ). More tests to come : ).
cheers,
gil

Ed at Ridersite said:

Very nice light & selection of background Gil. I think I like the
last one the best - more of the critter IF, but still excellent
bokeh. Nice little project.

Post like this have me wondering. How many lenses do you have? You
seem to enjoy the seeking out of the rare gems as much as the
resulting images. And, you always seem to get the best out of your
finds.
--
AEH
http://aehass.zenfolio.com/
Question: What do you do all week?
Answer: Mon to Fri. Nothing, Sat & Sun I rest!

Click to expand...

--
Cheers,
gil - San Jose, CA
Cheap Lens, JPG and 100% Handholding Provocateur
Like happiness, photography is often better created than pursued.

the prices for known ones already skyrocketed : ). Since the Canon (James D. is just one of the many), Pentax and the Oly 3/4 systems are more versatile than the A-mount in terms of conversion/adapters availability; they were really way ahead of me in the collection. I am now just taking the crumbs : ).
cheers,
gil

Keith Schmidt said:

I think if enough people see these pics, there may be a run on M42
glass on ebay

--
Keith
http://keithinsp.smugmug.com/
http://www.pbase.com/themitty/
http://www.picasaweb.google.com/themitty

Click to expand...

--
Cheers,
gil - San Jose, CA
Cheap Lens, JPG and 100% Handholding Provocateur
Like happiness, photography is often better created than pursued.

with cost ranging from a few $ to less than $40. The good manual macros were mostlly beyond $100 and the good manual 85mm starts from $250. I will have to dig deeper for below $20 lenses : ).
--
Cheers,
gil - San Jose, CA
Cheap Lens, JPG and 100% Handholding Provocateur
Like happiness, photography is often better created than pursued.

...it got a knock from the crisis, too.

Work has slowed down considerably. I plan to shift my illustration jobs a little into different directions and if it wasn't for the winter I'd have quite some more time available for shooting.... ; )
Bernd