What's the best stopped-down M42 camera?

RLangham · Jan 30, 2021

beemermark said:
No one has mentioned the Mamiya 1000 DTL. Pull the wind lever out meter is on, push the wind lever in lens stops down. Very intuitive. Takes modern silver oxide battery's. Has spot & average meters. Built like a tank, The 500 DTL is the same but with a top shutter speed of only 1/500th.

I mentioned the series in the original post. I've been a fan of Mamiya cameras since buying my first Nikon, the Nikkorrex F, which was actually built by Mamiya with a Copal shutter. Recently I acquired a DTL 1000 that someone had tried to paint black by disassembling and spray painting with black primer, then touching up with some wood or interior paint that wasn't meant for painting metal, such that some areas have flaked off revealing chrome, and others are a dull, ugly dark grey. They also nicked the prism when reassembling, I think, as there is a chip. The upside is that I got a functional DTL for 15 bucks. I like it quite a lot. I have some expired Kodak 1000 color film in it right now.

AgX · Jan 30, 2021

beemermark said:
No one has mentioned the Mamiya 1000 DTL. Pull the wind lever out meter is on, push the wind lever in lens stops down. Very intuitive.

I am slow on the uptake here, and I could not find a manual. Could you explain more detailed?

RLangham · Jan 30, 2021

AgX said:
I am slow on the uptake here, and I could not find a manual. Could you explain more detailed?

Yes. On this camera, the wind lever is cleverly set up to also be the stop-down/metering lever. You press the lever towards the camera and it activates the meter and stops down the aperture. It's a very comfortable and ergonomic interface.

AgX · Jan 31, 2021

Now I seemingly got it. With some other cameras pulling back the wind lever to first angled position activates the meter, pushing it back to be parallel with the body switches off the meter again. No mechanical action involved.
With that Mamiya 1000DTL one has push the wind lever to the front to stop down the diaphragm.

RLangham · Jan 31, 2021

AgX said:
Now I seemingly got it. With some other cameras pulling back the wind lever to first angled position activates the meter, pushing it back to be parallel with the body switches off the meter again. No mechanical action involved.
With that Mamiya 1000DTL one has push the wind lever to the front to stop down the diaphragm.

Yes, furthermore, accidental activation can be prevented by pressing a button on the wind lever hub, which folds up the lever and prevents it from activating the meter or stopping down the aperture. It is reactivated by pulling it to the rear in a manner reminiscent of some Nikon cameras.

It's interesting to note that even the on-off switch in this camera is not a typical design, but rather a mechanical linkage which causes a flexible metal collar to make contact with the battery cell. The camera is in most ways idiosyncratic but the spot metering it offers is a considerable point in its favor. It is probably the cheapest camera to offer that future on the modern used and antique market. I believe it was the first camera to offer multiple metering patterns in a through the lens system.

davela · Feb 3, 2021

beemermark said:
No one has mentioned the Mamiya 1000 DTL. Pull the wind lever out meter is on, push the wind lever in lens stops down. Very intuitive. Takes modern silver oxide battery's. Has spot & average meters. Built like a tank, The 500 DTL is the same but with a top shutter speed of only 1/500th.

Thanks for the tip. I never thought the Mamiya build quality was all that great, but the fact they can take modern batteries makes me want to take a second look at one of these.

I think the Spotmatic, at least the one I own, can also take some offbeat hearing aid battery that is still made. It is said their TTL metering electronics can tolerate voltages above 1.3 V and meter correctly. I remember mine metering well with such a battery, but it's been a few years. Perhaps someone here remembers the details on this.

Paul Howell · Feb 3, 2021

The Spotmatic uses a bridge circuit which adjusts to voltage variations and modern battery will work, I use hearing batteries only because I have them on hand, but a silver oxide will work fine.

beemermark · Feb 3, 2021

Paul Howell said:
The Spotmatic uses a bridge circuit which adjusts to voltage variations and modern battery will work, I use hearing batteries only because I have them on hand, but a silver oxide will work fine.

Many cameras that use the mercury battery have the "bridge" or "rosette" circuit which means the camera will also work with silver oxide. The circuit drops the voltage to the meter and maintains a constant voltage to the meter even when the battery discharge begins to droop. Sometimes the initial silver oxide voltage will be too high (depending on the resistors in the circuit) and will require an adjustment in the ISO/ASA value. But the meter will continue to read correctly until the battery dies. It was a great sales job that convinced people that they needed to buy special adapters to use a silver oxide battery in substitution for a mercury.

davela · Feb 4, 2021

beemermark said:
Many cameras that use the mercury battery have the "bridge" or "rosette" circuit which means the camera will also work with silver oxide. The circuit drops the voltage to the meter and maintains a constant voltage to the meter even when the battery discharge begins to droop. Sometimes the initial silver oxide voltage will be too high (depending on the resistors in the circuit) and will require an adjustment in the ISO/ASA value. But the meter will continue to read correctly until the battery dies. It was a great sales job that convinced people that they needed to buy special adapters to use a silver oxide battery in substitution for a mercury.

Well some cameras really do need a stable 1.3 V in my experience - no question about it. A notorious example of this is the Nikon Photonic metering prism which was designed for two 625 mercury cells. With alkaline batteries these meter in error by 2-3 stops. I believe the adapters (and I own one) simply contain a configuration of diodes in series. The diodes are selected to develop a stable 1.3 V voltage across their terminals, but it's the fabrication of the enclosure for them to mimic a battery case that costs the money. Diode are a simple and cheap, but often effective way to make a voltage regulator (as I think you probably know).

I agree though, the adapters are still overpriced. Also, the adapters also, in my experience, still have fit problems in some cameras which they should fit.

Paul Howell · Feb 4, 2021

I have Miranda EEs and Konica T3 and 4 that needs an adaptor or hearing aid on the other hand Petri seems to fine with a silver oxide.

Wallendo · Feb 4, 2021

The Mamiya step-down metering system took me a while to get used to since it meters from a small area at the bottom of the image. About the time I got used to it, the camera malfunctioned. Maybe one day I will open it up, but I doubt I would know how to fix it (Essentially the film advance advances the film continuously be rarely cocks the shutter.).

flavio81 · Feb 7, 2021

AgX said:
I have no source that it is single-layer coated, only that it is not multi-layer coated.

Yes you are correct. I have been looking at my samples closely and it definitely has some surfaces that at least have a double coating (for example, the front surface)

BobD · Feb 7, 2021

I recently discovered (theoretically) the Yashica TL Super. It is an M42 body that uses modern batteries (LR44, etc) for meter only. I believe it was the first camera to use them. I haven't gotten my hands on one yet but recently bought one online and should receive it soon.

There is a review of it here:
http://mattsclassiccameras.com/slr/yashica-tl-super/

RLangham · Feb 8, 2021

BobD said:
I recently discovered (theoretically) the Yashica TL Super. It is an M42 body that uses modern batteries (LR44, etc) for meter only. I believe it was the first camera to use them. I haven't gotten my hands on one yet but recently bought one online and should receive it soon.

There is a review of it here:
http://mattsclassiccameras.com/slr/yashica-tl-super/

I had the TL electro X. It had one of the earliest electronically timed focal plane shutters. There was a related camera that was actually aperture priority (with the aperture closed by default), but this was just a stopped down system with two indicator lights (small light bulbs, I think) in the shape of arrows indicating over and under exposure. Fairly forward-looking for its time, but big, kind of busy-looking, ugly if I'm being frank, and not as fun to use as some other stopped down cameras

Paul Howell · Feb 8, 2021

The TL super came out in 1966 or 67, stopped down metering, turning the meter on stopped the lens down, match needle, Yashica made a range of lens from 28 to 800, not very fast but sharp. Yashica was a GI favorite widely sold in the Army and Air Force exchanges. The Electro AX was the aperture preferred model, although it came later it used a 6.5 mercury battery. The Electro AX manual says that it uses standard M42 lens, other sources state that early lens will not work.

RLangham · Feb 8, 2021

Paul Howell said:
The TL super came out in 1966 or 67, stopped down metering, turning the meter on stopped the lens down, match needle, Yashica made a range of lens from 28 to 800, not very fast but sharp. Yashica was a GI favorite widely sold in the Army and Air Force exchanges. The Electro AX was the aperture preferred model, although it came later it used a 6.5 mercury battery. The Electro AX manual says that it uses standard M42 lens, other sources state that early lens will not work.

I can't imagine why earlier standard m43 lenses wouldn't work. As long as it didn't have any proprietary modifications like Pentax, Olympus and Mamiya made to their later m42 lenses, there should be no other requirements. And I bet from what I've seen of other cameras, even some of those modified m42 lenses would mount fine.

If it mounts and doesn't interfere with the mirror, it seems like any m42 lens at all should be able to be used in aperture priority mode with that camera.

There might be a danger of the special pin on the Pentax lenses jumping down into a screw hole and locking the lens onto the camera and then unusable configuration, as can happen with some versions of the Zenit E and apparently some Mamiyas. But standard M42 lenses should have very broad compatibility.

Paul Howell · Feb 8, 2021

From Camerapeida

"Unlike other models in the TL Series, the AX has a viewfinder blind (for self-timed exposures), and a shutter lock. Due to the construction of the mirror, Yashinon DX lenses cannot be used with the AX."

Odd I have not been able to find a list of AX lens and the manual does list available lens.

RLangham · Feb 8, 2021

Paul Howell said:
From Camerapeida

"Unlike other models in the TL Series, the AX has a viewfinder blind (for self-timed exposures), and a shutter lock. Due to the construction of the mirror, Yashinon DX lenses cannot be used with the AX."

Odd I have not been able to find a list of AX lens and the manual does list available lens.

My Electro X came with one of those. I don't remember anything weird about it. I sold it for practically twice what I bought the camera for. Later the camera got some soda spilled on it by a real idiot. I'll take the fifth about his identity.

BobD · Feb 12, 2021

I just received this M42 mount Yashica TL-Super body for very little money from a non-photo online seller who didn't know if it worked.

I'm happy to report it is in near mint condition and everything does work including the meter. I've never handled one of these before and I'm quite pleased with its overall quality.

The TL-Super is all-mechanical save the meter which uses a modern S76-type battery, the first camera to do so according to the manual. The camera has a hot shoe, mirror lock-up and self-timer and 1-1/1000 shutter speeds with cloth curtains. Build quality seems quite good, as good as any camera of this era from Japan. Unfortunately, I don't have any M42 lenses on hand so that will be my next project.

Paul Howell · Feb 12, 2021

That's a great find, with luck you can a few Yashica lens for it, Yashica lens were good performers, I have a 50 1.9 in M42 mount in storage, its as good as Pentax.

RLangham · Feb 12, 2021

BobD said:
I just received this M42 mount Yashica TL-Super body for very little money from a non-photo online seller who didn't know if it worked.

I'm happy to report it is in near mint condition and everything does work including the meter. I've never handled one of these before and I'm quite pleased with its overall quality.

The TL-Super is all-mechanical save the meter which uses a modern S76-type battery, the first camera to do so according to the manual. The camera has a hot shoe, mirror lock-up and self-timer and 1-1/1000 shutter speeds with cloth curtains. Build quality seems quite good, as good as any camera of this era from Japan. Unfortunately, I don't have any M42 lenses on hand so that will be my next project.

Some Chinon or Petri lenses might be a cheap way to get started. I have about a dozen m42 primes, all of them 50 to 55 mm.

ts1000 · Feb 13, 2021

I think the best one, in terms of capabilities would be Fujica AX5 with the rare M42 adapter.
Because with that adapter, if my memory serves me right, the camera is able to apply its programmed modes to m42 lenses.

So in a way the Fujica Ax5 with that adapter was the bridge between 'eras' for the m42 lenses.

ciniframe · Feb 13, 2021

Rare now but Olympus sold the FTL that yes, had open aperture metering with the limited number of Zuiko M42 lenses made for it. With all other lenses it could do stop down metering. I believe that they had 28, 35, 50, 135, and 200mm lenses, maybe 6 lenses total including 1.8 and 1.4 50’s.
I’ve only held one once, decades ago and it seemed to be solidly built with a nice enough action but certainly nothing special in the M42 world. A short term stop gap until the OM system (which was close to introduction at the time) could be completed.

What's the best stopped-down M42 camera?

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