Shooting Takumar lenses on a German camera was a failure 

You know what? I've always thought GDR was part of the Soviet union, but in fact they were just allied. (yes, I didn't study modern history in school)

I've only heard of it as a classic trashy b-movie, eventually I'll have to try watching it

As a photographer you will appreciate how badly it actually is. Like the lighting, exposures are just awful.@@MarcoAries

A masterclass on doing everything "wrong" and still rise to popularity 😁

Oh, I'm far from a master, but thanks! 😅 I'll keep investigating and experimenting to see if it's just an unlucky one-off or a wider scale issue people rarely talk about.

I've used the camera many times with other lenses and I've never had this issue, as you can see from other videos I've posted. I've adapted the lenses to digital and I did have a hard time focusing properly, although with the difference in tolerances between the Praktica's mount and the adapters I used I can't say how much that influenced the results. So I don't know for sure, maybe a big t of both, maybe some inconsistency between German and Japanese factories.

@@MarcoAries I own all those lenses and they are all sharp on my Spotmatics and my digital Fuji camera's. Praktica's camera's are not the best.

Yeah, the MTL5 is just a mass produced brick, but it is interesting how it only had this issue with Japanese lenses, while working perfectly with Soviet and German ones. Did you have the chance to use Soviet and German lenses on your spotmatics? Did you notice any difference or issue?

@@MarcoAries The M42 in Russia and East Germany are slightly different. I have the Zenit 3M (Very cool camera) which uses the M39 SLR mount. If you use a adapter ring (Helios-44 M39) M39->M42 on a Spotmatic, infinity is not always achievable. I just got a Zenit-B M42. I will be testing a Takumar on it soon.

M39 and M42 are different, yes. Let us know how it goes with the zenit, when you have the chance to try!