M42 Lenses

Hi there reader, so quick but fun blog I want to post for you. Last year while trying to figure out how to come up with money for new lenses I stumbled upon a pot of gold that I'm not sure a lot photographers know about. This great pot of gold comes to you from the past and it is called M42 lenses. Now I can give you a whole break down of the history behind M42 lenses but instead I'm just going to say that you can get hundreds of hundreds of unique vintage lenses for practically next to nothing! All you need to do is buy an adapter through ebay so that you can mount the lenses on either a Canon, Nikon, Olympus and so on. For example since I have a Canon I would use the following:

Search Canon M42 Adapter on ebay and you'll get this:



You can find these lil adapters for less than $10 as you can see. You can also find great M42 lenses via ebay or if you get lucky a yard sale, thrift store and local independent camera store. There are many makers of these lenses out there but I've noticed I see more Yashica lenses more than anything.

I love the flares and the milky look these vintage lenses produce! Keep in mind you can also find prime lenses for dirt cheap. These are great quality lenses because they are built solid as heck! Unlike the new lenses we have out now that are built from plastic. The glass is great and produce great results. Here are some samples using my Yashica F=50mm that I bought for $5 on my Canon XSI.







Now I do want to note that in order to get the best quality out of your M42 lenses you have to shoot in Av (Aperture Priority) mode. I'm not entirely sure how it is noted on other cameras other than my Canon but it has to be in the aperture priority mode. Heres a quick tutorial on it:

http://www.wikihow.com/Use-M42-Lenses-with-a-Canon-EOS-DSLR

I hope you enjoy this great and nifty way of getting tons of great quality lenses and as always please feel free to email with any questions.

-Enrique