M42 body/adapter recommendations

fidget

fidget

Lemon magnet
Local time
12:48 AM
Joined
Jul 30, 2005
Messages
1,357
Location
Northern England
View My Gallery
I have a hankering to play with m42.
I like some of the older Pentaxes and wonder how an M42 lens works (with adapter) on a K mount body. what features would be lost?

Any recommendation for a smooth M42 body?

Dave.....
 
You lose all aperture coupling between body and lens, with all that implies in terms of setting aperture, stopping down when shooting, and in-body metering. You gain access to a whole world of lenses ranging from the ridiculous to the sublime. Well worth the effort. 🙂

Smooth M42 body? I'd guess that a Spotmatic would be the obvious choice.
 
mabelsound said:
Get an F, and then use SMC Takumars, and you don't have to do stop-down metering. That's what I just did!
Click to expand...

That sounds interesting. Loss of open aperture metering could be a problem if the body has no dof preview button. So, maybe I should know, but what's an "F"? Not a Nikon F?

Dave...
 
Thats a Spotmatic F, it had full aperature metering but, the lenses for it are hard to find. If you want an old Pentax screwmount body, I like the old H3v. It has no meter but great ergonomics and one of the best ever finder screens, at least to my old eyes. There are many fine screwmount lenses at dirt cheap prices. A great way to have fun. Joe
 
A picture is worth a thousand pixels 🙂

This is my very economical M42 kit:
2210686267_111e8847a6_o.jpg


From the left: CZJ Biotar, CZJ Flektogon (on the camera), Promaster Spectrum 7 28/2.8, and the SMC Tak. 200/4. I'll pit the Chinon against any Spotties out there 😉
 
Last edited:
I formerly used a Spotmatic SP, but have replaced it with a Fujica ST 705 because the Pentax meter was not reliable, even after a repair. The Fujica viewfinder is better than the one on the Spotmatic, but, with Pentax lenses, it requires two fingers to get the metering to work.

Jim N.
 
fidget said:
I have a hankering to play with m42.
I like some of the older Pentaxes and wonder how an M42 lens works (with adapter) on a K mount body. what features would be lost?
Any recommendation for a smooth M42 body?
Click to expand...
Dave, am I guessing correctly that your older Pentaxes are K-mount bodies? With an M42 lens on a K body, you lose the auto diaphragm control, so instead you treat the lens as a "pre-set" and use the lens's auto-manual switch to open for focus and close for exposure. Not too bad, but subject to error. If the body has AE, then the aperture-preferred method will still work with the M42 lens, but of course stopped-down. AF confirmation will work too.

Be careful in shopping for the adapter needed to fit the screw mount lens to the K body... The film-plane register distance is identical for both mounts, so the M42 adapter must fit flush with the K mounting flange. Some don't, and have a thin flange of their own that will prevent infinity focus. The correct Pentax-style adapter is a bit fiddly to remove, as there's a spring-latch to move with a small tool or fingernail.

As to M42 bodies, this is a more convenient way to go, as you avoid the adapter and gain auto diaphragm. Spotmatics are the "classic" and plentiful choice, and use stop-down metering... as you turn on the meter with the sliding switch on the left side of the mirror housing, this automatically stops the lens down to the set aperture so you can check both exposure and depth of field. Models prior to the Spotmatic are excellent and compact, and have no built-in meter.

The last of the Spotmatics were the open-aperture models ES, ESII, and F. Backwards compatible with all previous lenses for stop-down metering, for open-aperture metering they require the SMC or Super Multi-Coated Takumar lenses having the extra aperture-keying tab. These lenses work fully on previous bodies, too, though without the meter coupling of course.

I have an ES, bought new, and an ESII, both featuring AE with electronic shutter control. The Spotmatic F is a manual exposure camera, and essentially a screw-mount version of the earliest K-mount bodies that followed, like the KM and KX (of which the popular K1000 was a stripped "price leader" variant).

Any of these 30+ year old bodies will need service to assure proper lubrication, cleanliness and adjustment. Just count it as part of the purchase cost, unless the seller has recent service documentation. I've been very satisfied with service from:
Hendrickson Camera Repair
272 Shoffner Rd
Sharps Chapel, TN 37866-2319
http://www.pentaxs.com/

I like Pentaxes, and have been using them since the mid-1960s... I hope you'll find a setup you enjoy!
 
thanks for your very informative replies.
I don't have any Pentax, I just liked the look and feel of a friends P30.
I've had a Praktica PLC3 from new for 30-odd years (but I've not used it for over 20). It has a helluva clunk when shooting, and I always blamed it for my poorer shots.
I became interested when I picked up a Zenit E as part of a job lot. I didn't want it particularly but was very impressed at how smooth and jolt free the release was.....

I thought that maybe I could get TTL metering and run with some of my old lenses.

This morning I won a Fujica ST605, so will have something else to play with (mend).
I am now not looking for a adapter for a non m42 body. Perhaps this Fujica will be OK.


Dave....
 
The Fujica arrived today. It had a lovely Helios lens with it.
Is that Helios as in the Russian lenses of rf fame?

I think that I can safely say that, after handling the Fujica, I will not be spending much (any) time on the Zenit or Praktica. It's a shame that the meter don't work though.
 
fidget said:
The Fujica arrived today. It had a lovely Helios lens with it.
Is that Helios as in the Russian lenses of rf fame?
Click to expand...
Yes.

In all probability you have a Helios-44 58/f2 lens. They are quite decent as an allround lens and for portraits. I like the bokeh wide open and used to use one on a Canon AE-1 for a while with an adapter. Keep it, it's not worth a lot financially but a rewarding picture taker IMHO.

The other, somewhat onlikely option is that you have a Helios-40 85/f1.5 lens. That's a fast lens originally made for photographing oscilloscope screens that has some weird bokeh characteristiks. The lens is quirky, has its admirers and haters, appears to be quite popular among bokeh freaks and tends to sell for inflated prices. I don't like it too much but I haven't used it for long.

Philipp
 
fidget said:
The Fujica arrived today. It had a lovely Helios lens with it.
Is that Helios as in the Russian lenses of rf fame?
Click to expand...

The Helios-44 is soft wide open but appears quite sharp when stopped down. It sometimes shows that swirly bokeh, which some people like.
 

Attachments

  • tn_Scan-070826-0013.jpg
    tn_Scan-070826-0013.jpg
    78.8 KB · Views: 0
Livesteamer said:
Thats a Spotmatic F, it had full aperature metering but, the lenses for it are hard to find.
Click to expand...

That could not be less true! All M42 lenses will work on it, and the SMC Takumars that give you full-aperture metering are plentiful both on eBay and fully tested from KEH. The 50mm f/1.4 SMC Tak, which I've heard people call the best 50 ever made, is all over the place for around a hundred bucks. Plus, I'm using my SMC Taks (stop-down only unfortunately) on my DSLR as well.
 
manfromh said:
The Helios-44 is soft wide open but appears quite sharp when stopped down. It sometimes shows that swirly bokeh, which some people like.
Click to expand...

Yes, that's a great example of swirly bokeh. I thought that this was peculiar to triplet lenses. In some shots it look really nice. IMHO.

Dave...
 
fidget said:
Oops! I didn't say that this is a 135mm f2.8 Helios. No model number or "made in.." text.
Click to expand...
Ah. That's a relatively late lens. I think it wasn't made in Russia but in Japan under a license of some sorts but I'm not sure. Could be that "Helios" has nothing to do with the Russian brand but instead with the British importer (the same as with the Helios-labeled external viewfinders).
 
Hi, I took the Fujica ST705 with the Pentacon 50/1.8 lens fitted. It felt great, so good that the digi didn't see any use in favour of it and my 6x9 rangefinder.
I picked up the Chinon from the post office today. It's the "CS" model and it's very heavy and solidly built. It has stop down metering (which works!!!) and a metal shutter. I will give it a go when I have some testing time. It's much bigger than the Fujica and so not quite as sexy.
 
fidget said:
The Fujica arrived today. It had a lovely Helios lens with it.

I think that I can safely say that, after handling the Fujica, I will not be spending much (any) time on the Zenit or Praktica. It's a shame that the meter don't work though.
Click to expand...

With my Fujica ST705, it takes two fingers to get the meter to work with non-Fujica lenses. With one finger, I depress the shutter release half-way, and with the second, I depress the preview button on the front. Then, in almost every case, the meter responds just like the Spotmatic.

Jim N.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom