Digital housing for M42 lenses (old SLR)

Gast · 2011-06-10T12:48:22+00:00

Kennt jemand eine preiswerte Digitalkamera (ich brauche nur das Gehäuse) auf welches meine alten M42 Objektive passen (habe noch einige von meiner Spiegelref...

Gast

Does anyone know of an affordable digital camera (I only need the body) that my old M42 lenses will fit onto? (I still have a few left over from my SLR, which I’d obviously like to keep using.) Many thanks for your suggestions, Best regards, Wolfgang

Urnes

Hi Wolfgang, Have a look in the Micro Four Thirds section on the Olympus or Panasonic websites. Otherwise, you can now get M42 adapters for almost all digital cameras. The flange focal distance just has to be right, otherwise you won’t be able to focus to infinity. Take a look here: Flange focal distance. There are also a few differences with the adapter-lens combination. With some lenses, the adapter sits so tightly that the aperture ring can’t be turned. And finally, there are also lenses which, although high-quality, can’t be focused properly on the digital camera; the image then comes out as if taken with a soft-focus filter – stopping down helps a little there. So it’s best to try out the combination beforehand. If you like, you can send me your email address via private message; I should still have one or two items at home that I could send you. Otherwise, adapting M42 lenses hasn’t been very successful for me. Regards, Sven.

klaus123

Hello You can use M42 lenses on all Pentax DSLRs with a simple adapter ring (though without a spring-loaded aperture) – the flange focal distance is identical to that of M42. Best regards Klaus

Wolf_XL

...to be able to work with it in any reasonable way, the camera should have at least an APS-C sensor. This gives you a crop factor of 1.5 – your M42 lens becomes a standard focal length, and your 135mm becomes a 200mm. With a Micro Four Thirds body, the crop factor is already 2.0 – meaning you’d need a 24mm M42 lens to achieve a focal length equivalent to 50mm. But I dare say I doubt whether any of this makes sense. For one thing, it turns photography into a miserable faff – think working aperture, ‘adapteritis’, focusing, etc. – and for another, a decent standard zoom lens for a digital body should easily cover the focal length range of your M42 lenses – and most likely with better quality. Using M42 lenses on a digital body is a bit like having your Porsche pulled by horses... ;-)

MarcS

Using M42 lenses on a digital camera body is a bit like having your Porsche pulled by horses... ;-)

...I wouldn’t quite see it that way; if you own very fast old lenses, you can usually achieve a bokeh with them that even very high-end new lenses can’t match. So it really depends on what you want to do with them. I’ve adapted M42 and PSix lenses to my Nikons and am very happy with the handling and results. Regards Marc PS...besides, we’re talking about an affordable camera here; not all digital cameras are Porsches, after all ;)

AchimBauer

Hello Mausebä, I hardly dare call you by your name. What on earth were you thinking? I’ve still got some M42 lenses too, but I hardly ever use them anymore. I do have loads of Olympus Zuikos, though, which I can attach to the E-series digital cameras, but my ultra-wide-angle lens ends up acting as a standard wide-angle. Canon does offer adapters for OM lenses, but full-frame EOS bodies are too expensive, even second-hand. So I looked for alternatives and came across the Kodak DCS 14 Pro (full-frame) with a Canon mount, which is hard to come by. But since you mentioned that you used M42 lenses with your Nikons, I assume there’s an M42 adapter for Nikon, and since the Kodak DCS 14 Pro was also – or rather, predominantly – available with a Nikon mount and hot shoe, as these cameras haven’t been manufactured for a long time, you could try 321 Versand (eBay); prices are rising again for the Nikon mount, though not as sharply as for Canon. But a body without a lens should be available for under 400 euros. But be careful: they’re often sold without software or a user manual, which (according to the sellers) you can of course download from the Yellow Giant’s website. As I said, unfortunately, the sellers claim the downloads have been discontinued. Regards, Achim