Advantages and disadvantages of M42 lenses

M42 lenses is standard screw mount (42x1mm) for 35mm cameras and it's mostly used in Single Lens Reflex cameras most popular in 1960s. Most people compare them with T mount lenses. T mount lenses measures have throat diameter of 42mm but differs from M42 because they have 0.75mm thread pitch.

Camera	Lens	Shutter speed	F-stop	ISO
Canon 600D	Helios 44-2	1/30 sec.	f/2	100

First M42 mount was produced back in 1938. by company Carl Zeiss by request of KW camera company for their Practica line of cameras, before that they were using M40 lenses. Today they are pretty cheap alternative to lenses for DSLR and Mirrorless cameras and they have amazing picture quality.

How you can use M42 lenses on new cameras?

You will need adapter that will convert your M42 lens to mount of your digital camera. So for example, if you want to use M42 lens for your Canon DSLR you will need to buy adapter like this.

You can buy it everywhere, on Aliexpress, Ebay, Amazon in photo equipment store. And after that you are ready to use it on your camera.

Advantages

1. Affordable ( you can buy yourself some good prime 50mm F/2 lens for just 5$ and it will have better image quality than your kit lens on your camera) you can see here my test of HELIOS 44-2 F/2 lens and see it by yourself
2. Great build structure (mostly, every lens was made out of steel and it's heavier than some newer lenses that cost 150$) For example my Tair 11A 135mm 2.8 it weights around 600gr and it's heavier than, for example, Canon 85mm 1.8 but has almost same image quality
3. Great bokeh (there is a lot of great M42 lenses that has 10 or more aperture blades that makes bokeh looks amazing and pleasing to eye)
4. They can live forever (because they don't have electronics in it they can literally live forever, except if you break it on purpose or drop it, glass elements won't survive drops)
5. Value for money is fantastic (Price per performance is really good. Sharpness and quality of images is amazing. I have my Canon 50mm 1.8 which costs around 100$ and 5$ Helios 44-2 58mm F/2 lens and I can clearly say that Helios can compete with Canon in image quality)

Disadvantages

1. No autofocus (because they were manufactured back in 50s, 60s, 70s they don't have autofocus so be prepared for using manual focus but you will get used to it. When I first got my Canon 600D, which I still use it, I didn't bought kit lens, I only had Helios 44-2 and I learned a lot about manual focusing and used it pretty fast)
2. No automatic aperture (because there is no any of electronics in M42 lenses there is no automatic aperture, so you need to adjust it by using aperture ring on your lens, but you will get used to it as I said)
3. Chromatic aberration (there is way more chromatic aberration than on newer lenses that have lens coat that will reduce it, there is also some M42 lenses that have coat for reducing chromatic aberration but it's not good as new lenses)
4. Sometimes you can't focus to infinity (I heard that when you are using M42 lens to Nikon cameras sometimes you won't be able to focus to infinity, but there is better adapter for it that has glass that will help you focusing in infinity so be careful what you are buying and research a little bit)

I will now show you some of photos that I took with my M42 lenses and you will see it by yourself. :)

Camera	Lens	Shutter speed	F-stop	ISO
Canon 600D	Revuenon 35mm	25sec.	f/2.8	3200

Camera	Lens	Shutter speed	F-stop	ISO
Canon 600D	Tair 11A 135mm	1/250 sec.	f/2.8	100

Camera	Lens	Shutter speed	F-stop	ISO
Canon 600D	Jena T 50mm	1/100 sec.	f/2.8	100

These are some of photos that I took with some old M42 lenses that I have, stay tuned for more and thank you for stopping by!

Have a nice day!