M42 lenses in Nikon D200

[marisa]

Hello,
I use old Nikkor lenses in my D200 with no problems. I put the camera in Manual mode and the lenses tell the camera the aperture value that I select. I have some good M42 glass that I will love to use, my problem is that I do not know how to setup the aperture and use the camera metering.
Any help will be appreciated.
Marisa

[Gurdie]

Welcome to the forum!

You can use your M42 lenses with the D200 either on Aperture priority mode or Manual mode.

You cannot see the chose aperture number in viewfinder, though. You can set the lens specs using the menus - Non-CPU lens data - so afterwards the EXIF data shows the focal lenght and max aperture.

When using Aperture priority mode "A" you change the aperture turning the lens ring and let the camera decide shutter speed. You don´t see the chosen aperture in the viewfinder, but you can see the chosen speed and if too slow, change the aperture or the ISO number.

If You use Manual mode, and set the aperture with the lens ring, you can set the shutter speed with the tumb wheel on camera. You can check over/underexposure from the top panel or viewfinder. Here´s the picture of top panel showing M for manual mode and the "exposure meter" line. This picture shows about 1/3 stops underexposure.

In the viewfinder you can see similar "exposure meter" at the bottom.

The panel and viewfinder only shows the lenses MAX aperture - if set by the menu - otherwise it shows the aperture used with the previous lens, so this can be confusing.



I recommend setting and saving the lens specs using the camera menu first time you use a manual lens. If saved, you can set it very fast when
changing the lens.

Here´s an article how to set the lens specs.
http://www.nikonians.org/nikon/d200_and_non-cpu_lenses/

Hope this helps.

[patrickh]

Also bear in mind you will not get to focus to infinity unless you use an adapter with an adjusting lens in it.


patrickh

Nice and thorough explanation Gurdie

[Screamin Scott]

I use M42 lenses on my D70s. With me, everything is manual mode,focus,& metering. Like when I used old film cameras that had no metering back in the 60's. I also have both types of adapters. With the non-infinity adapters, max focus distance is not much more than 3-6 feet depending on the focal lenght of the lens. Using an infinity adapter, I have found that that some lenses still don't quite make it to infinity, some go past infinity & yet others seem fine. The image quality does suffer some using the infinity version.......

[marisa]

Thank to all the friends that responded to my question.

Gurdie,
with your thorough explanation I am using my old M42 lenses with no problem. Again thank you very much

Patrickh and Screamin Scott,
Thanks for your advise. For the time been I am doing portraits and macros. In spite that it will be some image degradation I ordered an adapter with optics to experiment with it.

Marisa

[Attila]

Nice to see you Marissa!

[Rob Leslie]

I believe to make things clear to new manual lens users we should point out that M42 lenses can only be used on Nikons with an adaptor that has a glass correction element and that adaptor will degrade the quality to some extent.
To fit an M42 lens without a correction lens will result in the lens not being able to focus to Infinity.
Also only the more top end Nikon models like the D200/300 and above will allow metering with any manual lens, others like the D50,70 etc will not meter manual lenses , even Nikon ones.
I could stand corrected on this but I think the only other mounts that you can use on a Nikon without adding a glass correction filter are Nikon ones and Tamron Adaptall with the Tamron Nikon mount (In effect a Nikon mount lens). Of course a lot of third party lenses MF were made in Nikon mount and can be used but with the same metering limitations.
Perhaps some other users can confirm my post or give links to points I have wrong.

[Screamin Scott]

Rob,
You are correct on the metering as I use a D70s & manually set aperture & shutter speed. As far as what lenses will mount, besides the Adaptall & M42 , any T mount lenses (of course) will work & with adapters, enlarging lenses, be they on bellows or the camera. There is quite a lot of Nikon mount glass out there, but since Nikon can be mounted on other camera systems, the demand for it is high...

[LucisPictor]

Hi! Enjoy the manual world!

[Rob Leslie]

[Screamin Scott]

Rob,
I also used cameras before metering , or they had some sort of match needle metering setup (I used a Minolta SRT 101 as my first SLR that I could afford), but you still had to manually set the aperture & shutter speed. Those cameras were nice in the fact that you could still shoot even if the battery died as it was only to power the meter.
I am in a Flickr group called "Non metering lenses on Nikon DSLR's" where all members do the metering manually. A tidbit of good info is the fact that the least expensive Nikons (D40/40X/60) can even mount Pre or Non-Ai lenses, which the more advanced models can't

[spiralcity]

[sichko]

[pwsonline]

About the post of sichko:
Yes, I do it with P6 (500MM AND 300MM),
But most other medium format lens systems fit as well. Through extra adapters of course. (like Mamiya, Pentax etc)

I will be trying and comparing an M42 to Nikon (with coated correction glass, brand HAMA) adapter soon against a Pentacon6 to Nikon adapter soon. The lens in question is a Meyer-Gorlitz 300mm F4, I now have both adapters, and am keen to see what happens in terms of image quality.

[sichko]

[pwsonline]

Hi all,
The camera is off topic, but it was about M42-adaptation, so:
Just got back from testing with the Orestegor 300mm F4 om the very critical D700. The Meyer-Orestegor performs fine with great silky bokeh!

The first image is with the Orestegor M42-mount, and a Hama M42 adapter with blue-coated correction glass, it's pretty heavy too, so I suppose it is a good quality corrector...

F8, 200ISO. It was quite dark, so a very slow 1/25th shutter speed.



Next with Orestegor-Pentacon6-mount + Pentacon6-Nikon-F converter. So no correction glass:


Both render good sharp IQ (imho), will have to compare again with sunny weather to find differences, On the first image. there is noticeable vignetting on full-frame!

The second image seems a bit closer (tripod NOT moved), and has shallower DOF.

With/without correction glass, I see no increase of CA in 100% magnifications. So, on this lens, the difference is not great. Both focus to infinity by the way.

Last image is a 60% crop WITH the correction glass. DATA: 720ISO, F5,6 1/200th:

[sichko]

So your adapter with correction glass is acting a a "weak" wide-angle converter ! I only have experience with one "glass" adapter - the Kood M42 - Nikon and it acts a a weak (~ x 1.1) teleconverter. Are you sure that you've got the pictures the right way round ?

[pwsonline]

hi sichko,
Yes, I am absolutely certain, because of the vignetting. I saw it on the LCD-screen of my camera during the shooting too, so I remenber correctly.
I didn't expect this to happen either. As the lens is medium-format, the vignetting must be caused by the correction glass-holder. I have found a mint condition Jupiter 37 (135mm) to be used for macro and close-up, ordered it, so I will be trying it in another thread soon...