It is easy to get caught up in the remarkable performance and image quality of modern lenses, but the past century has given us hundreds of fantastic lenses full of character, and if you can find the right one, you can discover an entirely new creative world while spending far, far less than you would on a new option. The Pentax Asahi Super Takumar 55mm f/2 is one such lens, and this great video review takes a look at the sort of performance and image quality you can get from it on a modern body.
Coming to you from Christopher Frost, this excellent video review takes a look at the Pentax Asahi Super Takumar 55mm f/2 lens. Though it is 60 years old, the 55mm f/2 turns in generally performance, with the nice colors typical of Pentax lenses, decent sharpness and contrast, and interesting bokeh that can be leveraged in the right situations. Of course, you will not have autofocus with it (though the manual focus aids of modern mirrorless cameras are excellent), and you will not get the clinical sharpness of a modern lens from it, but at approximately $30 on the used market, it is hard to argue against a lens that produces shots full of character and with decent image quality at such a low price. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Frost.
Old Pentax lenses are usually good if not incredible.
These days, people don't really think of Pentax as a serious competitor to Canon/Nikon/Sony but back in the day, they were a major and very well-respected player in the photography space that produced some of the greatest cameras and lenses of their time.
Modern lenses and vintage lenses are simply different. Modern lenses (the expensive ones) are masterpieces of computational engineering, and are clinical. Vintage lenses are full of compromises, which gives them character.
They're a different tool.
My friend (vyoufinder on YT) says that this is not even a particularly good Pentax vintage lens. I've used his 85mm 1.8 and that rivals the best of the new Sony lenses.
I have a number of "vintage" lenses, several of which are Pentax lenses. I have found my particular versions in the 50mm rage are wonderfully "sharp" with excellent color renditions and a bit of character that makes them delightful to use. I have a number of the Sony GM lenses, and many other "vintage" lenses. Each of the older lenses are unique and I love using them all. It just depends what you enjoy.