I WENT BONKERS OVER 135MM VINTAGE LENSES

For my birthday this year, I went a bit crazy on ebay and ordered myself vintage lenses ... one vintage 135mm lens for each day of my birthday week.

Back when I was in engineering school at Columbia University in the City of New York a long long time ago now, I typically celebrated my birthday with two 99 cent burgers ... one for me and the other one for the homeless (CU fixture) gentleman panhandling outside of Burger King.

My charity this time around is probably less charitable however : I'm only helping those online traders get rid of their unwanted doorstoppers at over-inflated "Buy-Now" prices, contribute 25% VAT to the government coffers and increase my carbon footprint by continue putting DHL, UPS, Fedex, Royal Mail and Japan Post in business. Heck I haven't left my mancave since Mar 2020, I think this lackluster birthday presents are well-deserved! Doorstoppers to others, bling-bling to a simple starving creative wannabe like me.

Vivitar 135/2.8 AIS mount from Oslo 

Asahi Pentax Super Takumar 135/3.5 M42-Mount from Japan

Asahi Pentax Super Takumar 28/3.5 M42-mount from USA (next year's birthday present this year!)

Pentacon MC Electric GDR 135/2.8 M42-mount from UK

Nikon Nikkor 135/3.5 Non-AI from Japan

Jupiter-37A 135/3.5 M42-mount from Ukraine

Asahi Pentax SMC 135/2.5 K-mount from Japan (has a cult following, 6 element version)

Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar MC 135/3.5 M42 Mount

Olympus Zuiko 135/3.5 OM mount

SMC Pentax 135/3.5 K Mount

SMC Takumar 135/2.5 M42 Mount (6 elements, 6 groups)

A collage of the outcome of a week of utter madness on ebay. As consolation is cheaper than a Sigma Art 85mm f1.4 and I to play with 11 bokeh monsters!

I am so impressed with the SMC Pentax 135/2.5 (6 element) unit that I received, I decided to get another f2.5 (6 element) as well as f3.5 version. Hopefully with these 135s, autumn and winter will be slightly busier with making images and footages worthy of the reputation that comes with these lensea. Some of these lenses are indeed legends back in the day, some still are today.