Old lenses

Last week I was sneaking on ebay, trying to find something interesting, or at least something cheap and useful that I needed most.

And the difference between thoses two points is really hard to make. In fact that’s not the point of this note, but I wanted to share my amazement.

Here is the story: So i was surfing on ebay, and saw something i had already seen before “M42 adaptor”. After looking for further information about this, I had the confirmation that it’s used on different camera bodies and lenses, like a new Canon EF Camera and a vintage Pentax lens, for example.

I knew my father had an old camera he liked when he was young, but the body had a problem and he never had the time and the will to make it fixed. My idea was to test a different lens from the stock one I have on my 350D - which is great, but finally not really tremendous, especially for manual focus.

Therefore I bought the M42 adaptor for Canon bodies, and tested my father’s lens, a Pentacon 1.8/50 (that he used with a Practika MTL 3), and then i understood what f1.8 meant. The focus and sharpness are really amazing ! The stock Canon 18-55 is 3.5-5.6, so at 50mm i have on one hand the pentacon at 1.8 and in the other and canon at 5.6, and there’s a huge gap between those two apertures.

Last week end I played with the Pentacon, and really felt in love with it, you can nicely work with focus and blurs (and 1.8 is some kind of blury :P), and as it’s a very good lens, pictures are bright and sharp.

So i spent the last two days on ebay trying to find “adaptall” or “M42 fit” lenses :)) I’m now waiting for opportunities (or money to buy an expensive digital one, because auto focus is a great thingey hihi).

I’ll soon put some comparison shots.