All the fuss, over 30 centimetre's?

As I opened the door to my house today, I was pleasently greeted by this white package waiting just for me... (especially since the seller only posted it from Canada 4 days ago!)
Just like a little kid on Christmas morning, I could not wait to open up my little present, but of course photo's first.
As I began to unwrap the UPS packaging, I was shocked to see... a speedo box! And if u look closer still you'd notice that it's for women?... Thankfully it was only slippers (or flip flops depending where u come from)... but this was not what I paid for...
so opening the box and hoping for the best, my heart skipped a beat as I beheld the Takumar 300mm f4!
As with the Takumar 135mm, I was pleasently surprised how small but powerful it was...
See that it's barely 3 times the size of mr ducky...

And of course what's the point of the cake if I can't eat it... so I slapped on my M42-EOS adapter and tested a few shots out my room window... (hope the neighbour's don't think I'm a voyeur or something). Spotted and focused on a "flower" outside the window.
and here's a 100% crop
So far so good.... next challenge is to use it on moving objects... perhaps jet ski this weekend or F1 next weekend... hopefully the 1.7x TC comes by then...

Old things made NeW

As a new decade begins, so does the age of old manual lenses.
With the introduction of the Pen-1 & GF-1, a lot of old MF lenses have come back in popularity...

As for EOS camera's, it has been known to be able to accomodate other mounts. Unfortunately for me I've only just been able to get into the market this year just as the prices of these lenses soar higher... but one of the still good and affordable lenses is Takumar lenses. These lenses come in an old screw on mount known as M42 (42 for the diameter of the mount).

As of date I have purchased 2 such lenses through e-bay and it has been a joy to use even though the use of the M42-EOS adapter makes AF and focus confirm impossible. I could have bought the adapter with the chip but that costs substantially more.

In my collection now is the Super Takumar 50mm f1.4 (credits to steve-digicam for the photo)



















and my newly arrived Takumar 135mm f3.5



























The 135mm f3.5 has quite a story to tell of it's arrival to my doorstep.
I purchased this lens from fleabay from a wonderful seller. In fact this was my first purchase ever from the busy and competitive online auction house.

however the 50mm f1.4 which was purchased 2 days later came in half the time of this lens...
why this is I have no idea but it had me worried for a while as it was more than 3 weeks and I wrote to the seller who promptly replied that it was last tracked past the US customs and would continue to check... and surprisingly the next day it arrived... thankfully in one piece.

The stupock mail people rang the doorbell threw the package into the driveway and drove off just as I opened the door. I was glad to find that even so the bubble wrap was still mostly un-popped. And when I opened the package... I burst out laughing.

Why?

As you can see the lens comes in a casing, And from the photos I had in mind that it was a medium sized lens.

When I opened it I found this dwarf case barely bigger than my fist. and upon opening found a lens just as cute...

It was surprising as my 50mm actually has a bigger diameter but is shorter of course.

I look forward to soon testing this lens out and see whether it suites me or not...