Pentax SMC Takumar 6x7 75mm f/4.5

Put this next to the later 75mm f/2.8 AL and the choice comes down to what you actually shoot. The f/2.8 is the glamour piece: aspherical element, faster glass, brighter finder. The f/4.5 SMC Takumar is the one that quietly holds its own, keeps to a simpler optical formula, and costs a fraction as much on the used market. It has a long-standing reputation as one of the sharpest lenses in the 67 system once stopped down, and it keeps distortion modest for a wide on this format. On a Pentax 67 body that already feels like a brick with a handle, a compact prime up front is not nothing.

The 75mm sits a touch wide of normal on 6x7, roughly a 35mm equivalent in 35mm terms, with a published angle of view around 61 degrees. That makes it the lens that pulls double duty for environmental portraits and tight landscapes without the distortion you get reaching for a true wide. Wide open at f/4.5 the corners are soft and there is mild field curvature, the kind that bites if you focus on a near subject and expect the frame edges to hold. Stop to f/8 and it snaps into the sharpness the Takumar line is known for, with the high micro-contrast and color saturation that the SMC (Super Multi Coated) layers were built to deliver. Flare resistance is good for a late-60s design thanks to those coatings, but strong backlight can still wash contrast, so keep the hood on when you shoot toward the sun.

The slower aperture earns its keep elsewhere. You do not get the creamy subject isolation the f/2.8 buys you. At f/4.5 on this format the falloff is gentle and the background stays legible, busy even, with rendering that is honest rather than dreamy. For a lot of working landscape and documentary shooters that is the point. They are stopping down to f/11 or f/16 anyway and want the whole scene to read.

The people who keep this lens tend to be large-format-minded photographers who migrated to 6x7 for the negative size but kept shooting at small apertures, plus black-and-white landscape shooters who want Takumar contrast in a package they can hike with. There is no leaf shutter here, so every speed comes from the body's focal-plane shutter, which means the famously violent 67 mirror slap is in play. Below 1/30 on a tripod you will see it in your negatives unless you use mirror lock-up.

The honest weakness is the maximum aperture itself. At f/4.5 the viewfinder is dim in low light, and focusing a 6x7 finder in a dark interior with this glass is a chore. If you shoot handheld indoors or want shallow depth for portraits, the f/2.8 earns its premium and you should pay it. For everything from f/8 down, this is the better-value optic.

For filter work, the 82mm thread is on the larger side, so a graduated ND for skies costs real money. When you slide one on for a bright landscape, dial the filter factor into Zone Light Meter so the meter accounts for the light you are holding back and your shadow zones land where you placed them.