m42 lens on a d7000

[kidacrane]

hi there everyone very new here so hope you can help. I have recently been looking at old 3rd party lenses to play around with on my Nikon d5000 and have came across an m42 lens I like on eBay with an adapter. but what I wanted to find out was if after a while I do upgrade to the d7000 which has the built in motor, is it possible to auto focus like you can on the old Nikon lenses?

thanks for your help.

[Willem]

i'm afraid you can't. As far as i know no m42 lens can be autofocused.

[sichko]

Most M42 lenses are designed for manual focus, not auto focus, even on M42 mount cameras. So you won't get AF on a D7000. Note also that very many Nikon lenses are also manual focus and will not auto focus on the D7000. Some of them won't even mount on the camera without the danger of damaging it.

[peterqd]

And just to add that M42 lenses can't be focussed at infinity on a Nikon camera.

[kidacrane]

interesting thanks very much for your help there guys. The only reason ive been interested is ive come across a rare 12 blade dual aperture M42 lens which i really wanna try out but obviously you have to research a few things 1st!
By the looks of it, on ebay esp, it would only really be good on my canon and metering, focus etc is all manual.

Thanks again.

[ManualFocus-G]

Be careful, there are many sellers on ebay trying to shift crap items as rare ones! Many lenses made before 1970 had 12 blades and two aperture rings. And many of them can be had for £10.00 or so

[martinsmith99]

Don't bother with M42 lenses on a Nikon SLR.

[David]

I am 100% with Martin. I have M42 lenses for my Pentax and Canon gear as infinity-focus adapters can easily be had for each. However, Nikons are a different story and my practice is not to use anything without a Nikon mount. Preferably, it will also be Nikon made. Part of the issues, as alluded to in this thread, is that Nikon lenses have changed somewhat over the years. The mount remains the same, but their functionality has chances (non-ai, ai, ais, g, etc...) In fact, not all Nikon lenses work perfectly on all Nikon cameras. Any time I look at Nikon gear, I make sure it works on my cameras (currently an F3 and N90, soon to be a D200, too.) Check the Wikipedia article (if you haven't already) on Nikon lens and camera compatibility to help you select lenses that best match your camera.