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Takumar infinity adjustment?
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 22, 2013 9:52 pm    Post subject: Takumar infinity adjustment? Reply with quote

Does Takumar lens have an ability to be adjusted? I would like to adjusted it so that I wouldn't have to use a glass adapter on my Nikon. If so how would I adjust it? The glass adapters doesn't do justice on the images.


PostPosted: Mon Sep 23, 2013 12:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Depends on the lens, for the M42 normals you unscrew the name ring, you'll see 2 sets of 3 screws, one set holds the optics(leave these alone, they poke through the filter ring) another set holds the filter ring(remove them)then there are 3 screws deeper into the lens than the first set of screws, they are loosened, then the focus ring will turn but the helicoid will stay.
So all you need to do is set the lens to infinity, loosen, turn to half way, tighten one screw, find your new infinity, loosen, turn focus ring to infinity, tighten one, double check infinity, tighten all & put back together.


PostPosted: Mon Sep 23, 2013 12:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The lens I'm thinking about doing this to is the 200mm 3.5 lens.


PostPosted: Mon Sep 23, 2013 5:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've never opened one up, so I have no clue, it could very well be just as easy, you never know till you look.


PostPosted: Mon Sep 23, 2013 10:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

mflenses member Indianadinos had published how he adjusted infinity on a 24mm Takumar:
http://k10dpentax.blogspot.com/2008/05/fixing-infinite-focus-on-super-takumar.html
and he reports that his fix worked with a number of Takumars: http://k10dpentax.blogspot.com/2009/03/fixing-infinity-focus-on-takumar-lenses.html
hope this helps


PostPosted: Mon Sep 23, 2013 11:45 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Would be great to use some of my M42s on Nikon - SuperTak 50mm f1.4 SMC, or my Flektogon 35 f2.4. Even my Helios 44/2
A bit scared of messing with very nice lenses though!

Any reports of successful adjustments welcome!


PostPosted: Mon Sep 23, 2013 7:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

"Look it the lens ON CAMERA
you will see red diamond (the center of best focus) and on each side will be the f stops for that lens repeated left and right of the red diamond.

Set the infinity mark on the focus (sideways 8 symbol) at the diamond and look it your f-stop scale right and left of the diamond. everything enclosed by left and right f-stop scale will be in focus.

for instnace I'm shooting at f-8 I move the focus scale so the distances I need are enclosed by both f-8 symbols.. all within will be in focus. You can select infinity to be at the left f-8 and looking at the right f-8 you read that everything from 12 feet to infinity will be in focus.at f-8...you want more depth of field, select a smaller f-stop."

I got this response when asking elsewhere. How I don't know what he mean by it as it's hard for me to read. Can someone dumb this down for me?


Here is the inside with the main elements removed. I don't see what to adjust in here, unless there is something else I have to remove.


PostPosted: Mon Sep 23, 2013 11:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nikonshooter wrote:
"Look it the lens ON CAMERA
you will see red diamond (the center of best focus) and on each side will be the f stops for that lens repeated left and right of the red diamond.

Set the infinity mark on the focus (sideways 8 symbol) at the diamond and look it your f-stop scale right and left of the diamond. everything enclosed by left and right f-stop scale will be in focus.

for instnace I'm shooting at f-8 I move the focus scale so the distances I need are enclosed by both f-8 symbols.. all within will be in focus. You can select infinity to be at the left f-8 and looking at the right f-8 you read that everything from 12 feet to infinity will be in focus.at f-8...you want more depth of field, select a smaller f-stop."

I got this response when asking elsewhere. How I don't know what he mean by it as it's hard for me to read. Can someone dumb this down for me?

Looking at the image below, the diamond is indicating the distance to the plane of best focus, the numbers beside the diamond indicate the the depth of field(acceptably sharp focus) at different f-stops, just keep in mind that the markings only indicate "acceptable sharpness" and was intended for 35mm(FF) film, increasing the sensors resolution will effect what you will call acceptably sharp.
The lens below is set to hyper focal distance @ f22 ie everything will be acceptably sharp from infinity to about 15'

http://www.fineart-photography.com/dofScale.html


PostPosted: Mon Sep 23, 2013 11:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nikonshooter wrote:


Here is the inside with the main elements removed. I don't see what to adjust in here, unless there is something else I have to remove.

You shouldn't have to remove any elements to adjust infinity, though some lenses may require it, the problem is that you risk getting dust inside.
Can you take another picture a bit further back, it's a wee bit close to see clearly.


PostPosted: Tue Sep 24, 2013 1:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Lightshow wrote:
Nikonshooter wrote:


Here is the inside with the main elements removed. I don't see what to adjust in here, unless there is something else I have to remove.

You shouldn't have to remove any elements to adjust infinity, though some lenses may require it, the problem is that you risk getting dust inside.
Can you take another picture a bit further back, it's a wee bit close to see clearly.





To be honest I'm not worried about dust getting inside because this is my test lens. It's broken to the point where the blades don't move anymore. I believe whatever connects the blades to the preset aperture ring is broken. Anyhow I'm testing it out on this lens before I try my other 200 3.5 lens.


PostPosted: Thu Nov 07, 2013 6:07 am    Post subject: Brilliant idea! Reply with quote

Please let us know if you succeeded. I'd love to adjust my Super-Multi-Coated Takumar 135mm f/2.5 to use on my Nikon D90. This lens in particular has a lot of space between the rear element and the camera mirror when focused at infinity. There should be more than enough space for a perfect adjustment.


PostPosted: Thu Jul 30, 2015 11:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi there,

I have a SMC Takumar 200mm F4 that I would also very much love to use on my Nikon body.

I also imagined there would be enough margin to adjust infinity but unfortunately I don't think it would be possible, at least without further interventions...

To adjust infinity is fairly simple

I bought the thinnest M42 to Nikon adapter I could find (no glass of course), I tried adjusting infinity but I think I may have reached the "end of the line". I can now focus further than before and I believe I'm very close to get there but not quite (at F4).

When I turn the focusing ring now, instead of reaching a hard stop at the infinity sign, I come to a somewhat different stop, with a softer feel, around the 20m sign. This should be the end of the helicoidal, right?

Anybody attempted this and got a similar behaviour ?


PostPosted: Thu Jul 30, 2015 12:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Surely what is wanted here is not so much adjustment of the infinity focus as reduction of the flange focal distance.
The lens is very probably correctly adjusted for cameras that it fits.

M42 lenses are designed to have the sensor 45.46mm behind the rear lens flange, while Nikon's F-mount requires 46.5mm. If you can move the rear flange of the lens forward by just under 1mm all the focus distances should match the numbers shown. In doing this you'd have to change the lens mount to fit your Nikon too.


PostPosted: Thu Jul 30, 2015 12:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nikonshooter wrote:
"Look it the lens ON CAMERA
you will see red diamond (the center of best focus) and on each side will be the f stops for that lens repeated left and right of the red diamond.

Set the infinity mark on the focus (sideways 8 symbol) at the diamond and look it your f-stop scale right and left of the diamond. everything enclosed by left and right f-stop scale will be in focus.

for instnace I'm shooting at f-8 I move the focus scale so the distances I need are enclosed by both f-8 symbols.. all within will be in focus. You can select infinity to be at the left f-8 and looking at the right f-8 you read that everything from 12 feet to infinity will be in focus.at f-8...you want more depth of field, select a smaller f-stop."

I got this response when asking elsewhere. How I don't know what he mean by it as it's hard for me to read. Can someone dumb this down for me?


These instructions explain how to use the lens manually (using hyperfocal focusing) on the camera it was designed for. They have no relevance to using it on a camera that needs it's lenses further away. The 1mm difference in rear focal distance will mean that M42 lenses will not focus to infinity unaided on Nikon cameras. How far away you can focus will depend mainly on the lenses focal length.


PostPosted: Thu Jul 30, 2015 1:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
Surely what is wanted here is not so much adjustment of the infinity focus as reduction of the flange focal distance.
The lens is very probably correctly adjusted for cameras that it fits.


Absolutely! Although some people sometimes report the need for certain adjustments, which is where the procedure comes in handy, NOT to adapt to a different falange distance however.

Also, the distance to be compensated is more than 1mm since there's also the thickness of the M42 to Nikon adapter used.

Nevertheless, I've seen some reports regarding other lenses where a successful adaptation was achieved by removing the focusing ring infinity stopper, which allows the rotation of the ring further past the infinity mark, without necessarily messing with the helicoidal, or sometimes doing both actually.

I've also checked this thread:
http://forum.mflenses.com/viewtopic,p,1445503.html#1445503

Where it is suggested that if it's possible to somewhat unscrew the rear element a bit, infinity might be restored, which also makes sense.
I do not however intend to do anything to the lens that cannot be reverted later.

Thanks for your comment!


PostPosted: Thu Jul 30, 2015 5:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Zylkan wrote:

Also, the distance to be compensated is more than 1mm since there's also the thickness of the M42 to Nikon adapter used.


That would probably make it impractical, but it MAY be possible to remove the M42 mount and replace it with a mount taken from some Nikon mount extension tubes at the right distance.

The mount will often be held on by some small grub screws, & ultra cheep Chinese extension tubes might be adequate for your donor replacement mount (<£5). Coupling the two is an exercise in ingenuity & DIY but if the outside of the lens fits within the tubes it shouldn't be too hard! (A turned spacer & 3 fixing screws to clamp on the lens might work).

The extension tubes would be sacrificed in this approach, but the lens modifications should be possible to revert.


PostPosted: Fri Jul 31, 2015 10:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

That would be very nice of course, although my very limited experience tells me that in most lenses the flange is not something completely independent from other parts, including the rear element. That seems to be the case with this particular lens.

I've only seen that on lenses that have that particular feature on purpose such as the russian "A" lenses - Mir 10A, Jupiter 37A, Tair 3A, etc.

There's actually something interesting I've seen on another forum. A user was able to adapt a Jupiter 21M (also a 200mm F4 but with 1,8m min. focus distance) to achieve IF on Nikon when he disassembled the rear part and found a spacer ring that can be removed/adapted/replaced thereby shortening the overall length of the lens.

Regarding the option to unscrew the rear element a little bit may not be for me at the moment since I now realize my choice for a lens spanner was a poor one... I should have chose one of those "at an angle" instead of a straight one in order to reach difficult places.