M-42 adapter

mentos_007

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I have two great lenses from my old Zenit: one is Helios 50 mm f/1.8 and the second one is Pentacon 125mm f/2.8. Both are fully manual (focus and apperture). I am buying canon 350d in two weeks time (YAY finally! hear me Corry? Corinna? every Chris? !!!! finally! ). Unfortunatelly I'm buying a kit lens coz I have no cash for something better. And I am considering buying an adapter which will let me use my lenses from Zenit. Have you ever tried shooting with rebel xt/350d and manual lenses through adapter? What about light metering? I would like to use my 125 mm a lot because I loved tele in my old camera (fuji s5000) and I know I will lack something like 70-300 for a while. What's more Pentacon is a great portrait lens... what do you guys think?
P.S
if you have any pics taken with DSLR and old manual lenses please post here or send me :)
 
Congrats! :D

A 50mm is going to be like an 80mm on the 350d, and the 125 will be like a 200mm, which will make it tougher to use as a portrait lens. Instead of the kit lens, you should be able to get a 50mm/f1.8. I would think it would be the same price or cheaper, though the kit setup might be discounted. If you are going to get the adapter, you might as well get the kit lens and have a wide angle available.

I've never used the adapter myself. I've only heard that it works. Light metering should be fine, since that happens after the lens.
 
markc said:
Congrats! :D

A 50mm is going to be like an 80mm on the 350d, and the 125 will be like a 200mm, which will make it tougher to use as a portrait lens. Instead of the kit lens, you should be able to get a 50mm/f1.8. I would think it would be the same price or cheaper, though the kit setup might be discounted. If you are going to get the adapter, you might as well get the kit lens and have a wide angle available.

I've never used the adapter myself. I've only heard that it works. Light metering should be fine, since that happens after the lens.


I hope it would be fine... but I heard that on cheap dslrs like nikon d50 you cannot use old manual lenses becuase light metering doesn't work... any ideas why???
 
They're all over ebay, but watch out! Most of them won't let you focus to infinity (something about the distance to focal plane being different in canons vs m42) which means they're not very useful!
 
bigfatbadger said:
They're all over ebay, but watch out! Most of them won't let you focus to infinity (something about the distance to focal plane being different in canons vs m42) which means they're not very useful!


I know I know... and some of them may cause errors because theres something wrong with contacts... but I already found a guy sellin a good one :)
 
mentos_007 said:
I hope it would be fine... but I heard that on cheap dslrs like nikon d50 you cannot use old manual lenses becuase light metering doesn't work... any ideas why???
Oh that's right. Some of them won't stop the aperture down correctly, I believe. They only work if you shoot wide open. That's not really the fault of the camera though. That's the problem with trying to join two systems.

My choice would be to get the 50 instead of the kit lens and then save up for another lens later. Unless the style you like to shoot now doesn't work well with the 50. Remember, it will be like shooting with an 80mm/f1.8. You can't do really tight portraits with that, but it's nice for head and shoulders.
 
I have to disagree with badger about the M42 adapters not letting you focus to infinity. They all do.

You get full metering capability. The lenses won't stop down for you obviously.

Then there is the Katz Eye and haoda fu split screens which will let you focus accurately. They are about 100 bucks delivered.

Brace yourself - the viewfinder is small and tiny, it's like "looking at a postage stamp at the end of the tunnel" (forgot the (C) But zenit's viewfinder isn't a present ether.

Good luck with it. You'll be buying a bigger monitor soon. :sexywink:
 
markc said:
Oh that's right. Some of them won't stop the aperture down correctly, I believe. They only work if you shoot wide open. That's not really the fault of the camera though. That's the problem with trying to join two systems.

My choice would be to get the 50 instead of the kit lens and then save up for another lens later. Unless the style you like to shoot now doesn't work well with the 50. Remember, it will be like shooting with an 80mm/f1.8. You can't do really tight portraits with that, but it's nice for head and shoulders.


I need something wide and kit will be enough for a while...
 
bigfatbadger said:
I thought they didn't? Or is that just on the Nikon ones? If they do I might get one!

I can't speak from experience but I've been doing a lot of reading (I'm looking for a DSLR that I can use M42 lenses on) and I think it is just Nikon and not Canon that have problems.
 
yeah.. nikon doesn't work with manual lenses... actually both nikons d50 and d70... d00 works fine... but costs...
 
Im using m42 adapter and a Beroflex 135 f/2.8 on EOS 300v. Its film, but everything works fine, so it should work fine with digital too. Only bad thing is the manual focusing. Im never sure if i got it right or not.
 
there are 2 M42 adapters you can't focus at infinity with : the m39 to m42 ones, because of a different lens design (you can only do extreme close-ups) and nikon because the working distance is different. There have always been troubles with mounting different lenses than Nikkor on Nikon bodies, since the time Nippon Kogaku was making RF camera. You couldn't mount Zeiss-Ikon lenses on it, though the mount was the same because there was a difference of more than a millimeter (a thirtyef of a third of an inch), and you couldn't have real infinity, especially when shooting wide open.
With m42 lens, if you don't attent to shoot at infinity wide open, the issue will be solved thx to depth of field.
 

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