I have an opportunity to buy an older, but little used, Pentax 400mm lens. Does any one have experience with this lens? Would any one be willing to suggest a fair price?

-- Bill Mitchell (mitchellnet@earthlink.net), October 31, 1998

Answers

Bill: It would be nice to see a field test by an owner on this lens.You are talking about the Takumar aren't you? We have several field tests in our "Lenses" section of this forum written by myself. I wanted to give this forum a bit of a magazine feel. I looked in to buying this lens myself and found out that the 400 Takumar design is quite old and nearly identical to the 300. I only own the 300 Takumar and would say that the 400 has similar performance characteristics. They both need to be stopped down to f/8 and beyond to be sharp. The 300 and 400 Takumars both use an air spaced Cooke triplet up front with a two piece field flattener in the rear. The only real advantage of the newer 400 ED is the ability to shoot at f/5.6 and f/4 and still be sharp. The 400 Takumar is outer bay mounted which takes much longer to accomplish and takes some getting used to. I have used another outer bay lens(600mm)and can verify what a pain it is. I have heard that the 400 Takumar is much more difficult to keep stable on a tripod than the 400 Pentax ED, though I have not verified this myself. I would say a fair price for the 400 would be $1100- $1150. SR

-- Steve Rasmussen (srasmuss@flash.net), November 01, 1998.

I have the older 400mm lens;purchased new, and have been very happy with it. When I first got it, I wanted to see how it performed wide open. I was very pleased with the sharpness. I can honestly say this is one of my sharpest 6x7 lenses. Since I am now moving up to 4x5 format, I am considering parting with my 400mm Pentax lens. It's in mint condition with case, original box and owners manual. no scratches or dings either. If anyone is interested, please feel free to email me. jblps@earthlink.net

-- jim Billups (jblps@earthlink.net), December 27, 1998.