M42 Lens on Nikon Body and Infinity focus... I have few question.

[mdmosta319]

I have this lens - Helios 2/58 and my body is Nikon D5200.
1. If I use adapter without glass element, How much would it focus? by Feet?
2. If I use lower f stop 3,4 etc, will I be able to focus infinity (Someone said)?
3. Is there any easy of infinity focus?

Thanks, I am noob and will wait to hear from you.

 

[davidharmier60]

I'd also like to hear this!
I want one of these lenses in M42 screw mount for my AE-1.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk

 

[Derrel]

I tried a few M42 lenses on Nikon....no Infinity focus was possible on glassless adapters, and stopping down to f/16 would not come anywhere near Infinity.

You NEED a glass-bearing adapter to get decent focusing on M42-on-Nikon-F. Quality was only so-so on the $30 adapter I bought; perhaps a GOOD adapter, like a Novoflex brand, would be better??? I would hope so.

CANON d-slr is a good bet to adapt M42 lenses to without glass in the adapter; there are loads of old, junky Canon d-slrs for $129-$200 these days in pawn and camera shops, as well as nice, older-era yet higher-end models like the Canon 5D (aka the Canon 5D Classic) for $350-$450!

 

[fmw]

The problem is that the adapter moves the lens away from the focal plane just like an extension ring does. The effect is to allow the lens to focus closer but usually not to infinity. There might be some combinations of lenses and bodies that can be adapted without optical correction and still maintain infinity focus but they would be few and far between. Your DSLR should use compatible lenses and, if you want to adapt manual SLR lenses, you can buy a mirrorless body and it will allow you to adapt M42 and nearly any other SLR mount to it. The reason is that the mirrorless has a shorter lens to focal plane distance than the SLR so the adapter adds back the required change in distance.