My late father was a camera enthusiast and after he passed recently, all the camera gear came to me. In recent gear he had Sony digital but he also had an old Pentax MG with some m42 screw mount lenses. There was a bunch of minolta MD (e.g. m42-MD) adapters so it looks like he'd recently been mounting them on his Sony digital .

Anyway I'm interested to know what some of these lenses are. I shoot Nikon (D800, D7000) so I guess some might be mountable with an adapter if its worthwhile. Opinions or info on any of the following would be appreciated. They're all mint or mint-

#1 - A 55mm f1.4 labelled 'Auto Reflex 1:1.4 f=55mm 13016" with no apparent brand marking, m42 screw mount

#2 - Prinz Galaxy 135mm 2.8 No. 13718 m42 screw

#3 - Sankyo Kohki Japan W-Komura 35mm 2.5 No 3860421 m42 screw

#4 - Makinon Zoom 80-200 f3.5 MC Sony A-Mount I think

#5 - Kimunor 500mm f8

Carl

Hi Carl,

Shiny Paperweights. The 55/1.4 might be a little fun if you don't have a modern fast 50 already.

Cheers,
Dan

Sounds so interesting! I recognize a couple names there. Post pics so we can check 'em out too! Fun stuff!

No idea what those could be, but in view of the low cost of a M42 adapter, it could be fun and cheap to try

check with the knowledgable people at mflenses.com. They will give you all the info you need.

The M42 lenses won't give you infinity if you mount them on a Nikon. M42 flange distance is ~1mm shorter than Nikon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flange_focal_distance

Mike

The 500mm f8 is almost certainly a mirror lens. It can be used for wildlife, but it is fixed at f8 and out of focus highlights appear as little rings. I don't see anything on your list that looks expensive.


Kent in SD

Some Komura lenses are quite valuable, see

http://www.kevincameras.com/gallery/v/non_leica_sm_len/komura/

P.S. Kevin's prices are high, but usually not more than 50% higher than what the same lens would go for on eBay. The thing about Kevin is that he has stuff that rarely comes up anywhere else.

Prinz and Makinon are derivative, generic brands with generally mediocre performance.

Yes Sankyo Kohki is an interesting lens! Can be great for bokeh shots. Lots of aperture blades.

And the 55/1.4 you have to try as well with an adapter. Could be nice, could be soft and unsharp....

The others are not very interesting.

Most of the time those vaque brand mirror lenses are not very good.

The Sony Alpha mount is the Minolta Maxxum mount, which won't accept the old MC/MD lenses without a conversion, so I don't think he was using the M42s on Sony with those adapters. Maybe he had an old Minolta film camera that accepted the MD mount? It is entirely possible to use M42s on Sony SLR/SLTs (or the NEXs), but a different adapter would be necessary.

The Komura is an interesting lens, as previously noted. Yoyo Yang has a nice set taken with the lens and a 5D on Flickr.

jcolwell wrote:
Some Komura lenses are quite valuable, see

http://www.kevincameras.com/gallery/v/non_leica_sm_len/komura/

P.S. Kevin's prices are high, but usually not more than 50% higher than what the same lens would go for on eBay. The thing about Kevin is that he has stuff that rarely comes up anywhere else.


i would say his prices are usually closer to 100% higher than what the lens would get at an auction on ebay.

Say, 50% to 100%. It should be easy to compare Lens$db prices with Kevin - you got any spare time?

jcolwell wrote:
Say, 50% to 100%. It should be easy to compare Lens$db prices with Kevin - you got any spare time?

oh oodles. i've actually been looking through and your right – more common lenses only seem to have a 50% markup, it's just the rare ones that have the 100% markup.

thank you all for those comments. The Komura does look interesting and the shots on Flickr look quite good. I can get a m42 to Nikon adapter with correction-optic to allow infinity focus. I guess that's only going to be as good as the quality of the glass but I'll give it a try. When it turns up in the mail I'll do some test shots.