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will any M42 prime do?


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G'day,

 

I recently got myself a Krasnogorsk 16mm camera, and having been doing a wee bit of shooting, and am loving it, and not finding the threading too bad at all, easier than changing a nappy on a squirmy baby! Anyway, I have been reading the odd post about lenses etc, and toyed with the idea of getting a 50mm prime lens.

 

On fleabay there are many, super takumar seems to pop up on cinematography.com a lot, but there are others, yashica yashinon, pentacon, auto chinon, etc.

 

Am i missing a basic fact about lens, or can I buy any of them as long as they have an M42 thread?

 

Cheers, Gareth

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Pretty sure any of them will work. The trick will be getting a decent range of focal lengths. On a regular 16mm camera like your K3, a normal set of focal lengths would be: 9.5, 12, 16, 25, 35, 50mm, with 16-25mm being your "normal" lenses.

 

Most of the M42 lenses you will find will be 35, 50, 85 since they were made for the larger 35mm stills (24x36mm) format. So you will have trouble finding wide lenses.

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Asahi Takumars are beautiful lenses, particularly the 50mm f1.4, but they can be expensive. The 85mm usually sells for around $350 on eBay. If it's just the 50mm you're after, try to get a Super Multi Coated version. The Super Takumars are lovely, but they are only single coated and flare like crazy. It's a nice effect, but you don't always want it. They're a little soft wide open, kinda like shooting through a Black Promist #1, but they are great stopped down a little.

 

As Satsuki says, you'll struggle to find wide lenses, as 35mm FF lenses generally don't go wider than around 17mm and are also fairly slow.

 

bookstore.jpg

 

This was shot with an Asahi Takumar 50mm, probably somewhere between f1.4 and f2

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There is a difference between the Super Multi Coated, which are easy to find in M42, and the SMCs, which as you say are mostly in K Mount. The Super Taks date from the mid 60's, with the Multi-coated versions being introduced in the early 70's. All great lenses, and built to last.

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