Early Pentax Takumar Lenses. In the early 1950's it was a matter of prestige for a leading camera company to have its own fast telephoto/ portrait lens. Of course ASAHI Optical was serious in its ambition to join this club of names like ZEISS, LEITZ, ROLLEI and VOIGTLANDER.... It was the time when CARL ZEISS (1938) offered its great BIOTAR, a 6-elements/ 4-groups design with the highest speed of f/1.5 75mm, a quite huge, hevyweight lens that was soft wide open. Also LEITZ had a SUMMAREX 1.5/85mm since 1943 - 7 elements in 6 groups, a complicate design for the coating technique of its time, therefore flare-prone and quite heavyweight as well - 700g.
All these lenses weren't fully convincing in terms of performance at full aperture, but with slow films in these days there was a big need for speedy lenses. It was the time when CANON and NIKON also developed their first telephotos with f/1.5. This lens was made form Autumn 1953 - Winter 1957. 3. 4. 43 listed examples in m42.info 5. 5 listed examples in m42.info 6. 7. 8.
M42 Lenses and DSLR's. Discussing Best M42 Lenses in M42. BeWePa says: The outstanding M42 lens among the ones I could try would be the (west) Zeiss Ultron 1.8/50, which is maybye the best one of all the 50mm I used. Quite amazing but it is much more expensive than most M42 lenses. Other M42 normal lenses I tried are: Tak 2/55, Helios 44 (M2 and M7), Industar 62 L/Z MC, CZJ Tessar, Pentacon 1.8/50 (in no particular order).
They are mostly good. Preference depends of the shot and the conditions. Actually I just got the pentacon almost by chance and almost for nothing, and it seems surprinsingly good. Wides: the 3.5/28 tak is very good. Portrait: The J-9 obviously. 135's: I have a Tair-11, Pentacon 135/2.8, Jupiter-37A, CZJ Triotar. Except for the Ultron (which is not mine) and the portrait lenses, these were all quite cheap. 52 months ago (permalink) 42mm screw lenses. The 42mm screw mount was introduced in 1947 with the Zeiss Ikon Contax S 35mm SLR, then it was adopted by KW on the Praktica. Later it was chosen by Asahi for the Pentax family of SLRs.
It was also used by the Russians on the Zenit. In the 1970s that lens mount became old-fashioned, and was progressively replaced by bayonet mounts by all the manufacturers that used it, except on some Zenits. Very recently Voigtländer reintroduced a 42mm screw mount SLR with the Bessaflex. This mount is also called Universal screw mount, Pentax screw mount, even if it was not invented by Pentax, or Praktica screw mount (same remark), or M42 for short. Glassless adapters have been marketed that will allow M42 lenses to be used on bodies with the Pentax K-mount, the Canon FD or EF mount, the Nikon F mount, the Minolta MD or α mount, the Olympus OM mount, the Konica AR mount, and probably other 35mm SLR mounts besides. Angénieux Edit Arco See Arco lenses. Berogon 35mm preset f/3.5 lens. Berthiot Beauty Cimko Corfield. Pentax M42 Screwmount Lenses. Compatibility list of M42 lenses on Canon EOS 5D dslr. Compatibility list of M42 and manual lenses on Canon EOS 5D DSLR ... and some others with different mount: Adaptall II, Asahi Pentax PK, Canon FD, Contax Zeiss / Yashica C/Y, Leica R, Minolta, Nikon, Olympus Zuiko OM, Pentacon Six, Praktina, Rollei QB, Schneider DKL, Sigma Y/S, T2, Voigtländer, Zorki M39 - tbc... last updated 4-15-2014 (April 15 2014) currently 289 lenses in the list More and more, not only Canon 5D photographers and filmers are curious about the possibilities manual lenses offer.
Although Canon successfully works hard to boost the high ISO performance, resolution and so on in every new model, their goal is definately not to implement something like the charm of imperfection some manual lenses offer over the sometimes aseptic look of "Pro"-glass - ups plastic. For further information, workarounds and exchange with other Manual-Focus-Mates you might join the forums meant in the footer. (suggestions concerning the translation are also welcome...)
M42 lenses database.