M42's - Dust 'em off... February 2010

01/22/2010 08:13:06 AM · #1

Ok - For those of you that have M42's and are letting them collect dust, let's bring 'em out in February and give them a workout. How about it? :-)

Any subject, style, editing...don't care, as long as you're using a M42.

Post as many as you want. Comment as frequently as you can, and most importantly - have fun!

Signup if you have time/desire to get reacquainted with some fine old glass.

Signed up:

Germaine

kirbic

Canon EF 24-70mm f / 4L IS USM Lens

Jac

sulamk

Gabriel

MAK (maybe?)

Message edited by author 2010-01-31 23:35:49.

Germaine

Canon EOS-7D Mark II

01/22/2010 09:39:25 AM · #2

Cool! I'll dust off the old H3v.

01/22/2010 09:53:25 AM · #3

Originally posted by Germaine:

Cool! I'll dust off the old H3v.

Yay! :-)

01/22/2010 11:57:30 AM · #4

Hmmm, this would be a great excuse to dust off the 75/1.5 Biotar & the Peleng fish, neither of which have seen light for a while. I could even stretch the "M42" definition by sneaking in T-Mount and mounting the 600/8 solid cat!

Voigtlander Ultron 21mm f1.8

01/22/2010 12:16:50 PM · #5

Originally posted by kirbic:

S t r e t c h all you like. :-)

I have a couple of T4 mounts (not listed on my profile) that have been neglected also (I'll save those for later).

MAK

Leica M Monochrom

01/22/2010 02:38:59 PM · #6

Ive only got an old cheapo Helios 44-2 58mm thing

01/22/2010 02:42:07 PM · #7

Originally posted by MAK:

Ive only got an old cheapo Helios 44-2 58mm thing

You and 25 other DPCr's :-)

Sounds like the one you have is dusty for sure! Give it some love. :-D

ETA - Better yet, here's a fun challenge (well not much of one for you probably)...shoot a challenge entry with it. There's plenty of room on that lens page for a top notch photo.

Message edited by author 2010-01-22 14:45:24.

01/22/2010 05:31:56 PM · #8

Originally posted by glad2badad:

...here's a fun challenge (well not much of one for you probably)...shoot a challenge entry with it. There's plenty of room on that lens page for a top notch photo.

LOL, I actually have two challenge entries with M42 lenses... one successful, and one, well, not so much.

01/29/2010 10:55:37 PM · #9

New addition to the lineup just came in. :-)

01/29/2010 11:08:27 PM · #10

Ratz, I don't think that I have anything M42 mount. I do have a few odds and ends though. Does anyone know if a 1 1/4" Meade telescope mount is M42? The cam adapter screws on the back of the scope. I think that maybe one of my old 400 4.5's is M42 mount. I will have to take a look.
How about home made rigs for use with odds and ends sort of lenses like this one?

01/29/2010 11:11:01 PM · #11

Originally posted by MelonMusketeer:

That works for me if it works for you. :-)

Olympus 7-14mm f/4.0 Zuiko Digital Zoom

01/29/2010 11:36:18 PM · #12

Thanks, I'm in for this one. It is the busy time of year for me right now, so I will try to do the best that I can a couple of nights a week here. The pictured lens is a cinema projector lens, and it came with an "anamorphic" attachment that weighs about 10 lbs on the front of it. The glass in the anamorphic part was quite yellowed, so I suspect that it may glow in the dark if you catch the drift. The part that I use though, is beautiful.

one2one

Olympus E-5

01/30/2010 07:49:19 AM · #13

Would love to use my old M42 mount lenses but I don't have an adaptor for my E3. I have one for OM lenses but no M42. I'll search ebay for one.

I have this old 70-200 m42 lens I've been wanting to try out for a while.

Gabriel

Pentax K7

Tomioka 55mm f/1.4 in M42 Mount

01/30/2010 08:34:01 AM · #14

Originally posted by MelonMusketeer:

Does anyone know if a 1 1/4" Meade telescope mount is M42?

Beware. Most of the telescope adapters are T/T2 mount. M42 thread is 42mm/1mm, while T mount is 42mm/0.75mm. As a consequence, both appear to fit but you will have a hard time screwing them together. If you manage to screw a T mount onto an m42 adapter, you will have screwed one of the threads (or both).

sulamk

Canon EOS-60D

Sigma 70-200 /2.8 APO EX DG Macro HSM II

01/30/2010 09:41:43 AM · #15

i have a couple will participate if my adapter gets here in time which it should do

Olympus 7-14mm f/4.0 Zuiko Digital Zoom

01/30/2010 10:43:51 AM · #16

Originally posted by Gabriel:

Originally posted by MelonMusketeer:
Does anyone know if a 1 1/4" Meade telescope mount is M42?

Beware. Most of the telescope adapters are T/T2 mount. M42 thread is 42mm/1mm, while T mount is 42mm/0.75mm. As a consequence, both appear to fit but you will have a hard time screwing them together. If you manage to screw a T mount onto an m42 adapter, you will have screwed one of the threads (or both).

Hey Gabriel! Good to see you here. :-) I hope you'll participate - your knowledge could be helpful to many. I didn't see a link to your blog on your profile page. ???

And a quick shout out to Jac and Sandy...glad you can (want to) play too. :-)

I'm out to fire up the ATV and get the snow plow going...otherwise the mailman might not make it up our driveway and I'm expecting a M42 bellows to arrive today. :-D

one2one

Olympus E-5

01/30/2010 11:07:49 AM · #17

OK found one and I ordered it. They say 5 business days for delivery, hope they're right.

I found my SP1000 Pentax camera to see if my lenses were in the same bag but they're not. They're at my brother's house. :( I'll be getting them this week.

So I should be in this when the adaptor arrives in a week or so. Meanwhile I'll comment on the ones that are posted and get some ideas for my shots too. :)

Jeez the viewfinder is enormous on these old cameras, wish it were the same for digital.

01/30/2010 11:22:47 AM · #18

Originally posted by Jac:

Jeez the viewfinder is enormous on these old cameras, wish it were the same for digital.

It's true, the viewfinder in my old Exaktas is perceptibly larger than even my Canon 5D... and the viewfinder image in most APS-C DSLRs is even smaller.

01/30/2010 11:41:09 AM · #19

My favorite M42 Lens:

The 75/1.5 Biotar is still a highly regarded portrait lens. It has slight under-correction of spherical aberration which gives very pleasing renderings at large apertures. I absolutely love the results this lens gives for portraiture. This particular copy came out of eastern Europe. I bought it at the end of 2004. This lens was made in at least two different mounts,possibly others as well. I know copies were made in the Exakta/Topcon mount and M42. The lens was produced from 1939 (!) to 1960. My copy is a post-1950 copy with the aluminum body (Early ones had a chrome plated brass body). It's incredible to think that I'm (just) over half a century old, and this thing is four years older than I am (it turns 55 this year).

And another that is technically not an M42, it's T-mount (also a 42mm thread, but with a different pitch), with a T-mount to Canon EOS adapter:

The Vivitar "solid cat" was a legendary design, and performance is actually pretty good for a mirror lens. It's perfectly adequate on full frame, but of course does not compare to the performance of Canon's "great whites." It also set me back less than a tenth the cost of a 600/4 :-)
I bought it early in 2006, it was an e-bay find.

Message edited by author 2010-01-30 12:19:52.

01/30/2010 01:13:56 PM · #20

Originally posted by Gabriel:

Thanks for the good info. I thought that they looked about the same. I am glad that you tipped us off before I tried to screw the T mount on a M42.
[user]kribic[/user], I am interested in seeing some images from the Vivitar mirror lens. I was thinking about getting one of those. Is that the f8 model?

01/30/2010 01:30:11 PM · #21

Originally posted by MelonMusketeer:

...I am interested in seeing some images from the Vivitar mirror lens. I was thinking about getting one of those. Is that the f8 model?

Yep, 600/8, that's the one. The other is of course the 800/11, which I don't have, though I might be tempted at the right price ;-)
Let me see what I've got that I can upload. I shot with it at a youth baseball game a couple summers ago, and I think I have some informative material from that day.

ETA:

The full-resolution JPEGs are there if you click on "View full-sized image." They are uncropped. The first shot is purely a "test shot" of the sign/fence. The second is one of a series where I focused on the bag and shot action happening at the base.
The lens was mounted to my 486RC4 ball head, and the camera to the back of the lens. I was, however, shooting by hand-aiming the camera with the panning and ball adjustments slightly loose.
The downside of these shots is that, because of the way I was shooting, I boosted ISO to 800 to get high shutter speed. That did introduce some noise. It was a hot day, and that did not help the noise situation.
Processing of these shots was in Lr 2.6, and consisted of very minor exposure adjustment and setting sharpening to radius = 0.5px, amount = 75.
I believe this lens is absolutely capable of delivering enough resolution at the image plane to out-resolve the 5D sensor at 8.4µm pitch, or about 60 line pairs per millimeter. Focus is somewhat difficult and absolutely critical, though!
Contrast is somewhat low compared to a modern super-telephoto, and there is slight darkening in the corners. Both are of course quite correctable in post.
One thing you will notice... there is positively *no* detectable CA. None.

Message edited by author 2010-01-30 14:05:03.

01/30/2010 02:18:28 PM · #22

I see what you mean about that being a fine lens. I have a couple of mirror lenses, a 500 f8 Celestron, and a 1,000 f11 Meade.
I find that , once you find the subject with the long one, camera shake is the biggest problem. I also like the bokeh of my regular lenses a lot better. The mirrors work pretty well if conditions are good. I have to increase saturation and contrast in the shots with mine. I will shoot a couple of shots with each sometime during this challenge.
I have had the Vivitar on my wish list for a while, and may go ahead and hunt up one since I see how nicely the one that you have works. Thanks

01/30/2010 02:36:10 PM · #23

Originally posted by MelonMusketeer:

I have had the Vivitar on my wish list for a while, and may go ahead and hunt up one since I see how nicely the one that you have works. Thanks

Always willing to help a fellow glass addict lighten his/her wallet!