The Flagship Takumar Set

This is the set that was so good, it made me want to share these lenses with the world. This company would not exist without these vintage beauties. The set runs the full gamut of the best options in the Super and Super Multi Coated Takumar lineups, with the best optical formulas chosen for each focal length. They all share the same distinct Takumar look and color, but some just stand out from the other available options as the champions of their focal lengths.

Early super takumars

While Pentax changed lots of optical formulas across the run of the Super and SMC Takumar lineups for one reason or another, some of the top-performing Super Takumars had this happen for cost-cutting reasons. That’s why this set features every early Super Takumar that went on to get a cut-down revision. The obvious first choice is the legendary 8-element 50mm f1.4 Super Takumar that almost put Zeiss out of business. The early Super Takumar lineup wouldn’t be complete without the massive “Fat” 35mm f2 Super Takumar, which dwarfs every other lens in this set. Slightly wider than this is the fat 28mm f3.5, which was promptly shrunk into one of the most compact lenses in the Super Takumar lineup, but not before undergoing an earlier revision that opened its minimum aperture from f22 to f16, with this example being the earlier of these versions.

Cream of the smc crop

Pentax’s main stated benefit of the Super Multi Coated Takumars over their earlier counterparts is the better performance with flares. While it didn’t say this, the move from Super Takumar to the SMC generation of lenses also saw Pentax stop redesigning optical formulas to cut production cost, and start doing so to increase raw performance. While the remainder of this set (the 20mm, 24mm, and 105mm) were Super Multi Coated picks, based solely on their more advanced lens coatings, the final two are not. The most apparent of the SMC upgrades is the 85mm, which got its maximum aperture boosted from f1.9 to f1.8, with the addition of a 6th lens element. Less obvious is the 135mm f2.5, which also received a 6th lens element, but without any changes to the aperture value.

Experience them yourself

This set of lenses is available for anyone in the US to try out first-hand onShareGrid.

the notorious noktons

Full frame has gotten all the love for too long. To show everyone else what’s possible when you pull out all the stops, Voigtlander made a set of lenses worthy of building a legacy around. Just like with cars, vintage lenses are easy picks when you’re after character and style, but when you need raw performance and the culmination of generations of engineering improvements, modern lenses are impossible to beat.

glass as fast as a supercar

While Canon broke ground in the 60s with the insane speed of its 50mm f/0.95 Dream Lens, in the 60 years since, few companies have produced anything on par with it outside of the 50mm focal length. Voigtlander could have joined plenty of others if all it did was release its 25mm (50mm equivalent) f0.95 for the Micro Four Thirds system, but that’s not what it did.

Releasing one fast lens is impressive. Releasing five of them, however, is herculean. The five MFT Noktons offer full coverage of the typical cine lens focal-length spectrum, with matching spec values that make lens nerds drool. All five lenses sport a 10-blade aperture with an f0.95 value, and each lens is comprised of 11 individual lens elements at a minimum. The biggest deviation any of these lenses makes from another is that only three of the five sport aspherical lens elements.

See the set firsthand

The five lenses that make up Voigtlander’s MFT Nokton set are the 10.5mm aspherical, 17.5mm aspherical, 25mm, 42.5mm, and 60mm aspherical (21mm, 35mm, 50mm, 85mm, and 120mm focal length equivalents, respectively). If you live in the US and want to see if the lenses live up to the hype generated by their stats, they’re available to rent on ShareGrid.

Local to the DFW area?

For anyone in the greater Dallas-Fort Worth area, all of these lenses, and plenty more, can be rented on ShareGrid.