what m42 lens for Yashica slr

eli griggs · Sep 20, 2008

While Canon FD lenses and bodies are my go-to slr, I just received a great old slr, a Yashica TL-Super and need some lenses to get it properly into action. What can you recommend in the way of inexpensive yet quality lenses for this camera?

I am also hoping to one day add a Pentax or other m42 bodies to my bag so a recommendation on manual cameras are also welcome.

Cheers

Excalibur2 · Sep 21, 2008

eli griggs said:
I am also hoping to one day add a Pentax or other m42 bodies to my bag so a recommendation on manual cameras are also welcome.

Cheers

Ermm I wouldn't bother too much with M42 lenses or Cameras (for film), when ordinary Canon FD lenses are going cheap...if you already have a Canon FD mount just get an adapter for M42 if you want to try say Russian lenses.

But if you want run of the mill M42 lenses then Pentax is a good start, I have three 35, 55, 135mm but I'm not impressed with them (but others are), maybe in the past I bought them when these slipped under the quality control...mind you my sharpness comparisons are with a Nikkor 50mm, Olympus 50mm and Hexanon 40mm.

Ian Grant · Sep 21, 2008

Tamron Adaptall 28mm f2.5, 90mm & 135mm all excellent lenses and by having spare mounts can be used on a wide range of cameras.

Ian

Excalibur2 · Sep 21, 2008

Ian Grant said:
Tamron Adaptall 28mm f2.5, 90mm & 135mm all excellent lenses and by having spare mounts can be used on a wide range of cameras.

Ian

...but would the 90mm be cheap.....nothing seems cheap on ebay from 85-105mm as I need a prime telephoto to fill a gap (not impressed with zooms that I have tried).

And the problem is:- mention an "unknown" cheap gem on a public forum and the price goes up on Ebay.

Ian Grant · Sep 21, 2008

Sometimes the Tamron 90mm sell for a reasonable price. I have the 28mm &135, and I've used the 90mm and all three are as good as the major manufacturers .

The Vivitar Series One zooms are superb, I had the 70-210mm f3.5 Zoom which was the first version that was available in M42 thread. Mine was stolen but I now have the later f2.8 version which is an outstanding performer, and I used it for years to shoot rock concerts.

Ian

Excalibur2 · Sep 21, 2008

Ian Grant said:
The Vivitar Series One zooms are superb, I had the 70-210mm f3.5 Zoom which was the first version that was available in M42 thread. Mine was stolen but I now have the later f2.8 version which is an outstanding performer, and I used it for years to shoot rock concerts.

Ian

Yes series one is reckoned to be very good, but I've found with the zooms that I've tried so far (inc Canon), is that they have their sweet spots but are not excellent throught the range...e.g Tokina is VG at max 200mm and the Canon is crap at max 210mm. And not many people recommend a zoom for portraiture (for the usual reasons) when using between 85-105mm

As zooms seem to be still going cheap maybe the question for me (and maybe others) should be:-

What make of MF zoom (other than Nikon) can give the best results from 85-105mm ....the 70-150mm Kiron I tried seemed to be promising (well in daylight away from the sun) and I bought it cheap because of fungus...I gambled it was a small amount...well it was soooo much that when using flash in a room it had a flare problem...anyway took it to bits to try and clean the lenses and forgot how to put it back together again, so just using some elements for magnifying use....anyway it was only a loss of £5.

Markok765 · Sep 21, 2008

Pentax 35mm F3.5 super takumar

Ian Grant · Sep 21, 2008

Back in the late 70's early 80's Camera magazine ran a series of excellent test reports on the best Independent lenses and the equivalent focal lenghts from the main 5 camear manufacturers. Only the Vivitar Series One lenses were consistently on a par with the best then available, some of the Tamron SP's particularly the 90mm were good too.

I'd guess most of my images made with the S1 70-210 Vivitar were shot between 70 - 135 and I always found it an superb, it was fine at the 210end as well, I often shot Fuji 50D and never noticed a drop in quality through its range so I'd highly recommend them.

There's also a Tamron Adaptall 105mm f2.5 that's very good, I just remembered I bought one 18 months ago to use on my Spotmatic, but I've also used it on an EOS as well with an adaptor.

Ian

Excalibur2 · Sep 21, 2008

Ian Grant said:
Back in the late 70's early 80's Camera magazine ran a series of excellent test reports on the best Independent lenses and the equivalent focal lenghts from the main 5 camear manufacturers. Only the Vivitar Series One lenses were consistently on a par with the best then available, some of the Tamron SP's particularly the 90mm were good too.

I'd guess most of my images made with the S1 70-210 Vivitar were shot between 70 - 135 and I always found it an superb, it was fine at the 210end as well, I often shot Fuji 50D and never noticed a drop in quality through its range so I'd highly recommend them.

Ian

A source says there were numerous series 1 and the best were these:-

first made by Kiron
second made by Tokina
third made by Komine

forth and fifth with inferior construction quality and made by Cosina.

So a bit of research might be required to buy the right one.

Ian Grant · Sep 21, 2008

All the early ones were excellent, but I think as the company grew things changed. (90's)

Two absolute gems we haven't mentioned are the 28mm f1.9 WA and the Vari-focal 35-85 f2.8. These lenses rarely appear on Ebay because they are so good no-one wants to sell them.

Ian

Jeff Searust · Sep 21, 2008

The M42 mount is one of the best camera mounts to play with lenses on. This site: http://m42.artlimited.net/index.php lists nearly 500 different M42 mount lenses.

The ones I would start with are the Asahi Super Takumar and SMC lenses in 28mm and 50mm

The 50mm 1.4 is one of the legendary "radioactive lenses" which has its own page at the Oak Ridge national labs site: http://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/consumer products/cameralens.htm

The lens has a noticeable color shift to orange in the glass (mine at least does) but takes the most amazing shots and has the huge f1.4 aperture.

Don't listen to the Poo-pooers, and go spend a couple $20s on eBay and find some cool glass.

eli griggs · Sep 21, 2008

Thanks for the feedback, it's all helpful and as I don't need to fill out a system all at once, I can wait until just the right lens comes along, especially the Asahi offerings.

I also like the idea of some Tamron Adaptall lenses as I already have this adapter in Canon FD, though I don't have any of the lenses. My only experience with the Vivitar Series One was a positive one, as I had the first version in a FD mount when new and was always happy with the images it gave with color slide films.

Cheers

what m42 lens for Yashica slr

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