What To Do When Your M42 Lenses Not Working?

An adapter with such lens can probably degrade quality. The purpose a contemporary lens has too much to counteract the impact of stuff such as chromatic aberration, to guarantee that the corners are sharp at the centre  etc.

However, with this, you can’t fully achieve with one prism, since at various periods various wavelengths of light bend etc. And for a circular lens, you can not do that because not everyone’s going to concentrate on the very same plane. This means that in the adapter the optical lens element(s) adds a new lens assembly.

It should be very unique not to incorporate all these additional problems — that is, then that would multi-surface all of its surfaces, and possibly still need an asphere and low-dispersion feature somewhere within it. However, if you had more reflective surfaces you will get much more flare/contrast reduction.

My recommendation on M42 lenses not working problem is to adhere to legacy lenses that can be modified without extra optics. Sadly, I am sad to say.

M42 Lenses Not Working

M42 Lenses Not Working: 3 Best Solutions

Table of Contents

M42 Lenses Not Working: 3 Best Solutions

The Suggestions Are As Follows:

The Suggestions Are As Follows

1. Using a glass component connector. This shifts the field of view and infinite focus slightly, but any additional glass decreases the quality of the image (especially cheap/plain glass, such as some of the adapters). It can also lead to sensor reflection problems, etc.

2. Never use a glass-free adapter and start concentrating on sheer immensity. But remember you just have very tight focusing range. This must be going well. The variations in proportion to just the focal length are fewer than the short ones since wide-angle lenses experience less.

3. Change the lenses e.g. by installing and/or by changing the focal position of the infinite lens.

This could function with certain lenses absolutely, but in advance it would be hard to know exactly how complex the conversion should be and certainly, it won’t work as with any other device except for Nikon.

“My recommendation is to adhere to conventional lenses that can be modified despite adding additional optics.

Why Should You Go For M42 Lenses?

Why Should You Go For M42 Lenses

  1. Thanks to the versatility of the M42 lens mount and the wide variety of current lenses, there have been M42 adapters available for both existing and several obsolete lens configurations. Such an adapter works between the sensor and the mirror, allowing the M42 lens to have been mounted on a body with a separate mount. It, therefore, encourages the use of M42 lenses on a new film and optical SLRs.
  2. M42 adapters operate well enough on devices with such a flange thickness approximately equal to the flange depth of M42, which takes into account the famous Canon EOS mount, the Pentax K mount, the Minolta / Sony A mount and also the Four-Thirds system, including all the Micro Four Thirds system are widely considered. This enables the lens to always be mounted at the proper distance mostly from film or the sensor while maintaining the initial lens focus range.
  3. For certain M42 lenses, the rear part reaches too deep into another camera body, creating collisions only with mirror mechanism, often shattering it. This issue is considered to take effect with the Takumar lenses and the Canon body. Sony’s bodies are resistant to that kind of challenge.
  4. Three choices are applicable on bodies with a focusing distance larger than M42, especially Nikon. A simplistic mechanical adaptor enables for mounting the lens but still, the result is equivalent to just an extension tube which decreases the minimum focal length at the cost of losing infinite focus.
  5. Alternatively, an optical element converter can also be used to preserve the initial lens focus range at just the possible cost of certain image quality. Finally, the M42 mount can be replaced by the Nikon F mount on some lenses or the opposite adjustments on a Nikon camera body can be carried out. The latter would, inevitably, prohibit the camera from using the F-mount lenses under which it was designed specifically.
  6. Whenever an M42 lens is assembled, the functionality of a modern body can change. In aperture priority mode some bodies can indeed be controlled, in certain circumstances, others might expect total manual control exclusively. Confirmation of focus sometimes may not be possible.

Bottom Line

It’s up to you to say if this is valuable. I will that they scarcely work on many bodies of the camera and you won’t rely on any of them infinitely.

You should do more research before buying any. And have a look at the mentioned solutions of M42 lenses not working problems as well.  In that case,  you might not need those odd old hand focus lenses any more.

Leave a Comment