M42 lenses

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mumrar

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I was wanting to hear any advice, pros or cons about buying some M42 mount lenses, which of the many brands to buy or avoid, from anyone who has done this. It seems a crazy cheap way to get some decent primes, just looking at the specifications of the lens but that's not the whole story I know. I want to fit it to my EOS 450D with an AF confirm adapter. Thanks
 
try shooting in manual focus and no IS for a while, see how you get on. Then decide if you still want to try them.
 
mumrar said:
I was wanting to hear any advice, pros or cons about buying some M42 mount lenses, which of the many brands to buy or avoid, from anyone who has done this. It seems a crazy cheap way to get some decent primes, just looking at the specifications of the lens but that's not the whole story I know. I want to fit it to my EOS 450D with an AF confirm adapter. Thanks
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Have a read of my post here about using other system lenses on your camera. Using M42 with Canon EOS adapter is fine but mounted on Nikon will not focus on infinity without optical adapter (and those if exist - do compromise quality). Using with just a mount adapter, you will be limited to macro shots mainly. In either case, it won't autofocus and aperture will have to be set manually (though on some cameras AF-confirm will work). But this is not such a big problem as some may have you believe - I find it relatively easy to adapt and is just a matter of getting used to.

Having said that, the old glass is a fantastic way of getting a really good quality optics cheaply but you have to know the limitations.

If you want the older relatively cheap lenses that need to be fully functional on Canon EOS mount (by that I mean give you full range of focus distances including infinity), I'd suggest you look at old medium formats like Pentacon 6 - there are plenty adapters for them (even tilting and shifting - because they are MF they will cover a much larger area than DSLR sensor). Those lenses can be found on eBay or in some used equipment dealers and the most popular ones were produced by Carl Zeiss and some old russian factories. More info on this camera/lens system here.
 
WOW, thanks for all that info dalex. To be honest I'm not afraid of MF, as I want to stick to prime lenses and they'll be used in a pre-prepared setup anyway. I'll look at all of the info you gave me, but yes, basically I'm just trying to avoid all the shockingly expensive lenses that we have at the moment, especially when some apparently have less than great AF anyway.
 
Tricky69 said:
try shooting in manual focus and no IS for a while, see how you get on. Then decide if you still want to try them.
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That's a bit of an unfair trial as trying to manually focus an autofocus lens is not the same as manually focusing a lens designed for the purpose.

The amount of rotation needed for an auto lens is usually quite a bit less than that for a manual lens and as such, focussing the manual lens will seem to be a much more positive experience.


Steve.
 
I wasn't knocking the idea ... I use M42's myself.

I was just suggesting and easy/cheap way of getting an idea of whether you would want to live without the AF or not.

I like the idea of manual focus on an old but excellent lens, but for walk about I find I miss some shots because it's too slow.
 
dalex_257 said:
Basically M42 system mounted on Canon or Nikon will not focus on infinity without optical adapter (and those if exist - do compromise quality).
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That's not quite right is it? If an M42 adapter for Canon has a flange thickness of 1.46mm it will make the FFD 45.46mm, precisely what it should be. On a Nikon it cannot reduce the FFD from 46.5 so optics are the only answer.

Or am I missing something :thinking:

Russ
 
Rodintee said:
That's not quite right is it? If an M42 adapter for Canon has a flange thickness of 1.46mm it will make the FFD 45.46mm, precisely what it should be. On a Nikon it cannot reduce the FFD from 46.5 so optics are the only answer.

Or am I missing something :thinking:
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No you are absolutely right, my bad - I was looking at a different BFL/FFL distance... Need another coffee this morning to wake up fully. I'll fix that in the original reply - it's only Nikon that has the disadvantage.
 
if you intend to use them exclusively then maybe picking up a split focusing screen might be an idea, though I'm not sure if the screens can be changed on xxxd models
 
Tricky69 said:
I like the idea of manual focus on an old but excellent lens, but for walk about I find I miss some shots because it's too slow.
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I'd argue with this statement really - most consumer level lenses are not that fast and in less than ideal light conditions the AF is not amazingly fast (not comparing to the pro-grade fast lenses). I found that I can focus a fast and cheap MF lens much faster than some of my former consumer level lenses. For example I used Pentacon 6 Vega 12B 90mm f/2.8 (with tilt adapter for Nikon F mount) on my Nikon to shoot my 2 year old kid and pretty much had 9 out of 10 shots in focus (and, being a typical kid, she is really tricky to shoot with AF never mind MF). I'd say it is all a matter of practice really.
 
dalex_257 said:
I'd say it is all a matter of practice really.
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Agreed - I use a lot of MF and its really not hard. Especially with a lens that was designed for MF.

Obviously small viewfinders don't help on some DSLR's- on a full frame camera with decent viewfinder (Nikon D700, Sony A900) then MF is pretty easier to use.

And on a proper camera, with split prism viewfinder, MF is really really easy :D
 
puddleduck said:
Agreed - I use a lot of MF and its really not hard. Especially with a lens that was designed for MF.

Obviously small viewfinders don't help on some DSLR's- on a full frame camera with decent viewfinder (Nikon D700, Sony A900) then MF is pretty easier to use.

And on a proper camera, with split prism viewfinder, MF is really really easy :D
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To concur that, I have recently tried using friend's D700 against my D200 with MF lens and found it to be way much easier (focusing something difficult like that TV-Rodenstock f/0.75 that I have was a breeze comparing to D200). I think after that - I really need to get one of those Katz Eye screens on my D200 to use with MF lenses...
 
Thanks all for the further info, especially on the infinity focus for the M42 lenses on Canon. I'm seriously keen to go back to MF, I used to with a Minolta X-300 before, and I'm only wanting good quality primes rather than any zoom lenses anyhow.

I've noticed that there are bucket loads of different company lenses available, and obviously I only want something that is of equal quality to todays stuff optically. So what do I need to steer clear of really
 
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