M42 Lenses on Bolex H16 REX

[Joshua Wisdom]

Hey all, going to be shooting some mini projects soon with a Bolex H16 and would like to use M42 lenses with an M42x1 adapter, but cautious on the flange distance etc so just wondering if anyone had any tips on whether this will affect focusing on the camera at all?

Thanks!

[Mark Dunn]

The M42 FFD is much longer than C-mount (otherwise a plain non-optical adapter wouldn't be possible) so just plug and go. But your lenses will all be rather long for 16mm.

Edited March 5, 2024 by Mark Dunn

[Samuel Preston]

It should be fine, unless your lenses are extremely out of alignment already. Make sure you test your adapter for back focus, usually most adapters have back focus adjustment, I would do this before shooting. But as Mark said, you'll have pretty substantially long lenses in terms of angle of view. So double check that those are focal lengths you want to use, multiply your lenses focal length by the crop factor to get an equivalent focal length. 

[Simon Wyss]

Why not C-mount optics? What makes a new generation abhor from the original lenses? Optically they’re much better than any stills photo lens you can pick because they were calculated and made for the format.

[Joshua Wisdom]

It's a test for the camera so I'm playing with a few C-mount lenses, a Kern-Paillard 25mm and Pan Cinor Compact 17-85 aswell as an M42 Soligor 28mm