M42 - EOS: The Dive

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    There is a plethora of old M42 lenses on ebay. Many of the them are Zeiss or other famous companies whose optic qualities rival modern day lenses. Naturally, when I first heard about this, I was enthralled. The ability to acquire amazing glass at close to a fraction of the price of modern day lenses seemed like a gold mine to me.

    I took my first dive by purchasing a Makinon 35-105mm M42 mount lens along with a M42 to EOS autoconfirm adapter. Although M42 lenses do not have autofocus and must be used the shutter priority, he autoficus confirm adapter allows some sort of communication with the lens and the camera. The adapter aids in focusing by lighting up the focus points when areas in that focus point are in focus, somewhat like an autoconfirm blink in an AF lens.

  But it was then when the problems began. First of all, if you don't have a full frame sensor and have to deal with small viewfinders and pentamirrors as in the XTi, there is no chance your actually going to be able to focus. In addition, I made a further mistake by getting a zoom lens. If you're going to get an M42 lens stick with the primes. The zoom ring was wobbly and I needed to refocus every time I zoomed. The optic quality was horrible and when used with the 50D, the pictures had so much chromatic aberration, I could barely make out the edges of objects and im not talking about some sort of Holga effect.

 All in all I think that there are many interesting lenses out there using the M42 mount. But most of them cannot be taken as serious lenses. They are by far not a replacement for the real thing. If you want a usable 50mm prime stick with the Canon 50 1.4. You won't be disappointed.

Links:
AF Confirm Adapter
Great Collection of M42 lenses