M42 Lenses

I made this photograph by holding a Carl Zeiss Jena 50mm Tessar lens tight up against a Nikon D50. It's a bit Heath Robinson, but it is possible to get a picture via this technique. This is straight out of the camera.

Canon EOS 20D fitted with a 135mm f/2.8 Pentacon lens.

I find the colours and fidelity from the Pentacon 135mm f/2.8 lens a bit different from modern lenses. Not better; just different. In fact, I got rid of this lens because it required superhuman application of torque to focus the brute. The lubricant had gummed up over the years. I’ve never encountered that problem with Nikon lenses. QED. I used a Canon EOS 20D for this. I bought it specially to pair with vintage M42 lenses. Later I sold it for not much short of what I'd paid for it, and thought I had finished with old lenses. Within months I had to have another second hand Canon. Why handicap yourself with old lenses? Discuss.

Photographed using a Pentacon f/2.8 135mm lens.

I find the colours and fidelity from elderly M42 lenses on a Canon EOS 20D a bit different from more modern lenses.

A lamp post in the Cathedral Close, Wells, photographed with a Canon EOS 20D and a Carl Zeiss Jena 50mm f/2.8 Tessar lens.

Photographed with an Optomax 35mm f/2.8 lens on a Canon EOS 20D camera. The lens has an M42 screw thread and an adapter is therefore necessary. I don't think Optomax made lenses; like Vivitar, they specified what they wanted and got manufacturers (usually, if not exclusively, Japanese) to bid for the business. There's not much on the web about the Optomax 35mm f/2.8 lens. A person on a Pentax users' forum reported in October, 2010, that he had bought one for £4.99 on eBay. He said, 'Like all lenses of this period, it is all metal and very well screwed together. Image quality is quite good - the best so far, in my rapidly growing sub ten quid lens collection.'

Once I owned an Optomax 35mm f/2.8 M42 lens. It was a lived-in kind of lens with a former owner's postcode engraved into the barrel with a sharp pointed tool. I think there was something growing in it; there was certainly a hair inside, probably an eyelash. But you don't get many 35mm f/2.8 lenses for less than £10, so I gave it a spin and it was pretty decent on a Canon EOS 20D with a bit of post processing. Alas! the quantity of kit was overwhelming my living space. Things had to go. The 20D found a new home via eBay. It was a good camera: the 30D is very similar yet has a bigger screen on the back, and I would like one of those one day. The Optomax went to a good charitable cause. It may be making prize-winning images by now.

I find the colours and fidelity from elderly M42 lenses on a Canon EOS 20D a bit different from more modern lenses.

Photographed with a Canon EOS 20D and an Optomax 35mm f/2.8 lens from the screw-thread M42 era. I don't think Optomax made lenses; like Vivitar, they specified what they wanted and got manufacturers (usually, if not exclusively, Japanese) to bid for the business. There's not much on the web about the Optomax 35mm f/2.8 lens. A person on a Pentax users' forum reported in October, 2010, that he had bought one for £4.99 on eBay. He said, 'Like all lenses of this period, it is all metal and very well screwed together. Image quality is quite good - the best so far, in my rapidly growing sub ten quid lens collection.'

"Tessar" is from the Greek word τέσσερα (téssera, four) to indicate a four-element design. Tessar lenses provide good optical performance at a reasonable price. They have been around since 1902, although only since 1930 have they been available in apertures as big as f/2.8. Canon EOS 20D and Carl Zeiss Jena DDR Tessar f/2.8 M42 50mm lens.

This is the year when I bought a Carl Zeiss Jena 50mm f/2.8 lens for a tenner. It led to several further lens acquisitions from the Pentax scew-thread era, and secondhand digital Canon SLR cameras to allow their use with an appropriate adapter. It's pocket-money photography if you buy wisely and/or luckily, and it can be fun. These days, photography is automatic everything. And even the bolt looks decidedly old-tech compared to the keypads now used in modern housing. Photographed with a Carl Zeiss Jena 50mm f/2.8 lens mounted on a Canon EOS 20D via an adapter.

Photographed using a Canon EOS20D digital camera with an M42 lens via an adapter. You can't programme this camera with details of the focal length etc of a manual lens you're using and sloppily I didn't make a note at the time. I'm pretty confident it was the Carl Zeiss Jena 50mm f/2.8 Tessar. I keep that lens despite now not owning a digital SLR camera which suits it (Nikon SLRs, good as they are, do not happily accommodate the old M42 lenses, and why would you use one if you have an equivalent Nikkor available anyway). I quite fancy trying the Tessar on a secondhand Pentax digital SLR sometime when my resolve to stop spending money on cameras weakens.

Close detail of a tin of Huntley and Palmer's assortment of cocktail biscuits. It once - long ago - contained tasty cheese footballs, and other exciting cheesy biscuits flavoured with celery, onion, tomato, and plenty of salt. I used a Canon EOS20D with a Pentacon 50mm f/1.8 lens augmented by three supplementary cheap close-up lenses screwed into the filter recess.

Canon EOS 20D and 35mm Optomax f/2.8 with Nikon Close-Up No.4T supplementary lens.

For a few months during 2013 I used a secondhand Canon EOS digital camera with a selection of elderly M42 screw lenses which are plentiful on eBay. It was like stepping out of a Tornado GR4 and into a Sopwith Camel. Rediscovering manual focussing was particularly refreshing, although with variable success (no split-image microprism focusing screen on an EOS). Of the several lenses I tried, I liked the Carl Zeiss Jena 50mm f/2.8 Tessar the best: not fast, but tactile and close-focussing, the optical equivalent of a silk scarf. And a surprise was to be had in the Optomax (who they?) 35mm f/2.8 which was quite a capable lens with a wider field of view than the Tessar. This was despite a load of dust within the barrel, and a hair from some previous photographer’s head, and a smattering of mildewy dots not so bad as to rob the results of contrast, just a sort of early warning of problems ahead. It was built very solidly and it had engraved on the barrel, via a strong technical-drawing instrument, I shouldn’t wonder, the postcode of some previous owner. Eventually the M42-on-digital craze wore off. Some of the better kit was recycled on eBay; some lingers awaiting a burst of energy for further forays in the auctioneering nether-world, but the 35mm Optomax was not in the kind of condition guaranteed to please a fastidious prospective purchaser and went on a one-way excursion to an Oxfam shop. What remains of its optical ability is displayed here on ipernity for the amusement of all who venture into the flimsy biplanes of the photographic community.

Canon EOS 20D and 50mm Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar f/2.8. I find photographs made on a digital SLR with M42 lenses often need a lift in post processing, especially for lack of contrast and saturation. However, even though I no longer have the Canon 20D, I cannot countenance the sale of the CZJ Tessar. It is a joy to use: not fast, but sharp wide open at the modest f/2.8; sublime handling - focus and aperture stops feel 'just right'; and the ability to focus as close as 14 inches, which provides a big image in combination with an APS-C digital sensor.