–The Asahi Optical Company is one of Japan’s most renown camera and lens manufacturers. Their story starts in the early 1920’s, the company focusing on both 35mm and 120mm (medium format) film cameras. Some of the early Asahi cameras employed a screw mount (M37) similar with the later M42 mount.

After 1950, their first 35mm film cameras were the SLR Asahiflex, which still used the older lens mount. It was only in 1957 that the development of the Pentax cameras with M42 mount announced the beginning of a “new era” in the camera and lens business. In fact, the M42 mount became known as the Pentax mount because of its employment on Pentax cameras.

The Spotmatic series are the most celebrated today, for their build quality, robustness and practicality. But these cameras represent only half of the picture, the other being the Takumar lenses, which were upgraded to the new M42 mount.

The Takumar lenses were first employed on the Asahiflex cameras using the older mount type.

Once upgraded, they were renamed Auto Takumar, being the first preset modern M42 mount lenses. In the early 1960’s the Super Takumar single coated lenses were introduced. These lenses had a Manual/Auto switch aperture system. This meant that the aperture could be set at the desired stop – the manual mode; or that it could be pre-set, as it activated automatically when the shutter was pressed – the auto mode.

Later the Takumar series were upgraded with a new coating. Also, several exterior changes were made, so the Super-Multi-Coated and finally SMC Takumars saw the light in the first half of the 1970’s.

These were the last Asahi made M42 mount lenses, because the company switched to the Pentax bayonet also known as the PK mount. This meant a whole new generation of cameras as well.

The new lenses were named SMC Pentax. Later the letters M and A were added to differentiate between upmarket and budget lenses, but this is another story. We will only say that these lenses were intended to replace the Takumar lenses, which they did brilliantly in terms of optical performance. However, we consider that they lost some of their feel, mainly because the new SMC Pentax lenses began using plastic materials, where the older Takumar lenses employed only metal.

All in all, the Takumar and the Pentax lenses are great lenses. They have only “one problem”: they are cheaper and easier to find than the more celebrated German lenses. And to add to the confusion, they invaded the European market at a lower price than the competition. Nowadays in Europe, it’s difficult to admit that a Takumar 35mm f3.5 might be better than a Carl Zeiss Flektogon or Distagon…

In the early 1960’s the optical industry of Japan was booming ahead in terms of quality, price and numbers, so the Takumar lenses were produced in large numbers and “hit the market hard”. Both optical and build quality are great and it must be said that Asahi aimed at a premium market with the Takumar series, as they weren’t as cheap as the average Japanese lenses.

Pragmatically speaking, it is very cool that even after 50 years and so, one can find that Takumar lenses have a feeling of finesse and well adjusted mechanism. In fact, judging from the experiences we’ve had so far, we find them to be the most reliable of them all, surpassing the mighty German manufactures, such as Carl Zeiss.