Best 50mm to 60mm M42 lenses - for portraits, landscapes, bokeh, walking around town, macro etc 

best review in youtube history for old lens

I've been thinking about why I enjoy your channel so much, even from your first videos. Here are a couple of the reasons: 1) You speak with the relaxed authority of someone who knows what they talking about. You're not working to drum up a sense of authority because you already own it. 2) The information you provide is based on experience, rather than parroting information that is available widely. 3) Your voice tonality and cadence lend themselves to this medium. 4) The opinions you represent are very good. 5) You back up your opinions with demonstration. I'm sure there are other reasons, but for today, these are some of what impresses me so much about your work.

1. Ultra-Close up 0:50 2. Macro 1:54 3. Product Shots 3:09 4. Bokeh/Artistic Shots 5:09 Dreamy and Paintery Bokeh 5:52 Bubble Bokeh 6:53 Onion Ring Bokeh Bubbles 7:30 Swirly Bokeh 8:45 5. Portaits 9:13 6. Sports/ fast moving Object 12:40 7. Walking around town 13:33 8. Landscape 14:48 9. Astro 16:46

I feel like I just watched the national geographic on vintage lenses. You are truly a natural at this. This was extremely informative and I look forward to following you. WELL DONE!!

This is a fantastic video! Your understanding of each lens’ pros/cons is remarkable and is a true sign of someone who has mastered their craft over time. Seriously, I love this.

Outstanding video. Slices the vintage lenses universe across multiple dimensions with ease and clarity.

Thank you Simon for your always incredibly well researched content, along with your perfectly paced delivery style. I'm a big fan of vintage glass and my understanding of, and appreciation for, lenses of yesteryear is always enhanced through watching one of your videos. Again, thank you.

I love your photos and videos...thanks for sharing!

Thanks been watching and rewatching the m42 series videos , thank you love you :)

Back in the late 1960s when my Miranda Sensorex broke, a colleague loaned me his Asahi Pentax Spotmatic 35mm SLR with a normal lens. I fell in love with the Spotmatic and the 50mm f/1.4 8-element M42 lens. Eventually, I purchased my own which I still own and use today. I use it in a 28/50/135mm lens kit. That 50mm lens was so good that I never felt the need to buy a normal lens for my Leica M6.

I am getting into m42 lenses recently , your videos help me sooooo much!!! thanks

As a pentax lens owner for some years, I must say this is the best and most easy to follow review I've ever watched. Well presented, great use of images and overall, highly compelling viewing. Thank you so much.

Fantastic review from an experienced hands on photographer. Thank you so much. 👏

wonderful, informative and detailed review with tons of excellent examples to back it up.

What a fabulous channel! Please keep making such videos. Obviously a very knowledgeable RU-vidr. Beautiful Flickr gallery! Congrats!

I just stumbled upon your channel and I absolutely love all of your content. Very well produced and super informative. I just started getting into photography and I find this stuff absolutely fanscinating

Fantastic! This compelled me to add a couple more vintage lenses to my collection

Thanks, Simon - all these lens series videos are incredibly useful and beautifully made. I have to say my own experiences are very close to yours. I am a long-time Pentax fan and though I grew up with PK lenses from the late 70's - I'm really starting to appreciate how good the M42 Takumars are. The Russian lenses can be very good too, but you really need to strip them completely and remove every bit of old grease, and then re-lubricate. Please keep the videos coming!

Haven't seen anybody share this amount of knowledge on vintage lens. Appreciate your effort!

Brilliant video! Comprehensive comparisons for vintage lenses online are so rare, so this is great.

Great review of these lenses - many thanks!

What a brilliant video. Wow. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge.

Hello. I regularly watch your videos. Very well done and very useful. Thank you! I love historical information.

this is a fantastic video. especially for someone who just got back into photography. this has saved me alot of time

Really good! I have a few of those, and never thought of putting my Jena on bellows, but i will now! thank you.

Amazing collection, thank you so much for sharing it along with very helpful information! This video will help people for many years to come. I use a lot of different m42 lenses on my Pentax K-1 and love it.

Simon , hats off to the depth of your coverage

this is a GORGEOUS overview keep going!!

Wow! Thank you so very much for sharing your outstanding knowledge and information!

Nicely done video and beautiful images.

Thanks for a wonderful survey of the 50mm to 55mm ventage lenses.

Awesome review.Thanks for sharing👍

This is one of the best videos made by a very knowledgeable person..a Bible of good work. Thank you for taking your time.

Fascinating review. I don't think I blinked once during the video.

THis was a master class. Thank you so much sir!

Great video and good overview of the capabilities of these old lenses. I tottally agree about the Tak 50/1.4 8-lens version. It's one of the best portrait lenses I own and also shines in landscape photography, producing painting-like images with an incredible color-depth. It's amazing how different these are from the ones taken at the same time with the later 50/1.4 SMC version. The other very good portrait lens is my Revuenon 55mm/1.4 Tomioka I bought in 1975 with my Revue 3000SL (=Chinon CX) that complemented my trusty Spotmatic SP500. I own and use them to this day. Only my 'lens-park' of old M42 Pentax lenses has 'slightly' increased and contains among others the 50/4.0 100/4.0 macros or the Görlitz made Pentacon 16 blade 135/2.8 Bokeh monster etc..

Amazing reviews! Thank you so much!!

Thanks for your sharing, very useful!

Really great video, Simon, and super useful too. You deserve so many more subscribers....like another couple of zeros, at least! Keep up the good work 🏆

this channel deserves more viewers

I really enjoyed this one too. Watched it twice already! (If I'm honest I've watched all your videos at least twice.) Keep making them, you have a gift as a presenter, not to mention the excellent experience you are bringing to the medium.

A wealth of information, thank you.

Hugely informative video. Thank you!

wow, you are truly some sort of steven hawkins for lenses great video!!!!!!

Love it ! Superb review. I was thinking of selling my Takumar collection: 24, 35 , 50. Guess I’ll be keeping them 👍

Perfect cadence and straight to the point

Thanks for sharing everything on your channel. I just get the Takumar f4 macro early version. Amazing sharp and the bokeh is realy very smooth... My new favourite lens...

Really enjoyable content, thanks.

Keep up the great work.

Love this video very informative I personally have the helos 44m-4 and a super multi coated takumar 20mm looking to get a new fast 50

I've got a few lenses, including a couple of Takumars, but my favourite all-rounder is the Meyer Optik Gorlitz Oreston 50mm 1.8. For some reason, it seems much faster than a 1.8 and I have to stop down more than you would expect on a bright day. I have the older zebra version which may be why. Beautiful bubbles wide open, smooth bokeh stopped down, sharp on landscapes. For marco, not a true macro lens but I love my Flektogon 35mm 2.8. It focuses to 18cm normally, but on my cropped sensor that's down to around 11cm. On a cropped sensor it works like a 50-55mm and does a bit of everything well. Worth considering if you don't have full frame.

Thank you for sharing this excellent video.

Really enjoyed the video. Just purchased the Super Takumar 55 1.8 and looking forward to trying it out.

whoa!! thanks so much! amazing so much information!

nice review man

Just picked up a Bessaflex TM and looking for M42 lenses to try out. Thanks for this video-it is exactly what I was looking for and then some.

Excellent viewpoints!

This is a great video. I have four Takumars and love them. Love Pentax. The only problem with finding your videos is I have a feeling I'm going to spend so damn much money!

Great video. Thanks for taking time to make this wonderful video, sir. Enjoyed watching. By the way, I thought in bokeh lenses you could have added Volna too which gives hexagonal shape bokeh. Now I realize Auto revuenon 55mm 1.2 should be my next purchase 😊

You are incredible. Best Review. I want More!

Thanks for your work

I too have been collecting vintage lenses, mostly in the 50 to 58mm range, 85 and 105. About 32 vintage lenses to date; all for my IBIS stabilized M4/3 bodies (GX9 & EM-10). However, the camera bag and small camera tote have the following, usually. For the big bag...I keep the Helios 44-2, the Auto Sears (Tomioka) 55/f1.4 w/FR (focal reducer) attached, Jupiter-9 85/f2 w/FR attached, and Industar-61 50/f2.8 (macro). This bag carries plenty of other stuff (4K gimbal, filters, cleaners, extra body...). In the smaller tote, I usually have my Nikkor 55/f1.2 w/FR attached and the pancake Industar 50/f3.8; plus Lumix 35-100 (OIS), Lumix 12-32 (OIS), and Lumix 20/f1.7. Sometimes, I will swap the pancake Industar with a Jupiter-8 50/f2 or Jupiter-3 50/f1.5, within the smaller tote. The L39 mounts I keep oversized to M42 with an eBay thread ring. The rest of the lenses I pull out of the display cabinet from time to time...usually a Super Tak 50/1.4 or 55/1.7 as most of my other gear favors M42 for convenience. I have plenty of fast Canon lenses too...but I haven't used them much over the last 3 years. I also like the Konica Hexanons, but haven't been able to source a decent FR, so their use is even more limited with my M4/3 bodies. The classic Nikkor 50/f1.4's have remained on display, as well...little sense to play with them as my 55/f1.2 remains my goto Nikkor lens. It is amazing what I can place in that smaller tote...which is really just a shoulder strap Nylon case for a lensed GX7, with a few extra pockets.

Amazing collection

Great reviews 👍👌

Great review, thank you. I have been a Nikon shooter for over 35 years. I own many great A-is lenses and now I am interested in buying and using some vintage lenses to use with my Nikon FX cameras. I especially liked your vintage lenses review and I fell in love with your images especially those taken with the radioactive lenses with yellow hue. I greatly appreciate your lens recommendations for me and where I can get them. Thank you very much.

I picked up a Super Takumar 50mm f1.4 8 element lens a couple of years ago for embarrassingly cheap and am still "learning" it, I shoot with my 1968 Honeywell Spotmatic which I bought when I got back from Vietnam. Still fun to shoot film but now I'm interested in adapting those Takumar lenses to my Canon EOS Rebel. Woo Hoo!

this channle is a real gem :D, cool to find out about that whole toppic! Just got into Photography and Filmmaking.. wondering if these lenses are good for vintage vibe films aswell? Also realy like your voice, has a verry calming vibe

An excellent review! Back in the day, more lenses offered unique character. This is a quality seemingly not appreciated by contemporary photographers, thus they opt for the "sharpest" lens, which seems their yardstick for lens choice. I feel too few manufacturers invest in specialized lenses, whose "value" (character) is only appreciated over an extended period of actual use. I love many vintage lenses (Takumars) on my contemporary Fujifilm digital bodies.

great information and thank you for the lesson ....

Awesome review!

Well done, very interesting. Thanks for taking the trouble. Your focus is 50-60mm but beyond that the CZJ 80mm 1.8 is a very special portrait lens in my experience. For Landscape I use a wider lens like the Meyer- Optik 30mm 3.5, the Mir 37 2.8 or the Mir 20mm3.5

thanks for your job!

Quality and quantity... Top review, again..👍🙏👌

This is one of the best vintage lens comparisons I've ever seen. The only downside to using these lenses on modern mirrorless cameras is that they seem to get out resolved with higher MP cameras. 24 MP seems to be the safe zone. Than again, there might be some vintage lenses that could handle higher MP cameras. I'd like to see you do a comparison on that if you don't mind. Keep up the good work. I'm looking forward to your future content.👍🏼

Ordered myself a Yashica Yashinon DS 1.7 50mm in pretty good condition for 45€ and a carl zeiss jena pancolar auto 50mm f1.8 for 80€ in very good condition for my a7iii these days. My first vintage lenses. I find this really exciting, such a huge variety of great lenses!

A colleague gave me a 55mm f/1.8 Fujinon M42 lens that I use for portraits, travel, and vacation on my APS-C digital mirrorless camera. Great lens!

Awesome video. You've left me with some serious M42 lens envy! I have a like new 44M-4 and a like new 44-2, plus the like new bodies (Zenit 12XP and EM) they came with, and a Asahi Pentax 50mm f1.8, the latter of which is not on your list, for good reason I suppose, but this video has left me wanting more. Much more! Thanks for the time you took to put this together, and I look forward to watching more from you. Consider me subscribed! 😉 Will find you on Flickr also....

Thank you,fabulus revew With beautifull photos.

After watching this video, i still don't know which vintage lens to pick up for myself... i mean, everything is good, but the choice is still very hard... anyway very good video!

Great video. Would love to see your thoughts on the fisheye lenses, and the comparison of past and modern thoughts on them. 😎👌

55mm 1.8 pentax super Takumar is my favourite on my Spotmatic and my Nikon D300s for portraits with a simple ring adapter.

the multi coated Takumar 55mm/1,8 is fantastic lens, way underrated and not getting much attention, with the right conditions produces beautiful bokeh. Along with the 50mm/1,4, these are the two lenses I find myself carrying around most.

Hello Simon. Thank you for this excellent presentation. Enjoyable as are all your vids. Now, it would seem that the vast majority of these vintage lens vids from you and others, focus in on the usual lenses, Pentax, Helios, CZJ, Jupiter, Fuji, Yashinon, Tomioka etc. I find it odd that Topcor lenses are vastly overlooked or outright ignored. Let us consider the Topcor 58mm F1.4, the grandfather to the Voigtlander 58mm Nokton for instance. Fabulous lens, as is the 35mm F2.8 and the 100mm F2.8, but never featured in any vids. So please Simon, if you happen to get your hands on any of the wonderful Topcor lenses, I would love to see your learned take on them. Cheers from Canada.📸

such nice video！

This is an excellent video, thank you! Very thorough, well researched and well presented. I recently bought a Yashinon-DS 50mm f/1.4 (in M42 mount) in near mint condition. First impressions (with black and white film) are very good indeed. I do wonder how close this lens is in optical and mechanical design of other 50mm f/1.4 lenses produced in Japan at the same time - and, indeed, if some of them are identical twins except in name! Maybe a Geiger counter could tell us.......

I love takumars as much as you do, but I think Minolta needs some love too. I find the fast fifties of Minolta to be great performers (and super cheap!). The downside is that you need a mirrorless camera in order to adapt them without extra optics in the middle. Oh God, you could walk by a flea market and get thrown with at 45mm f2 at your head, for free! They are that cheap. And it's an amazing lens, almost a pancake. For macro shots, the Vivitars (and other brands, I think made by Kiron) are dirt cheap and great too. Nice videos!

The ZENITAR-M f1.7/50mm M42 EXPORT I ordered from the Ukraine came in. I was impressed with the weight. It is heavier than my other vintage prime lenses. I need to weigh this against my Jupiter 9 and see how that turns out. Of course, I have zooms that are much heavier, but not primes. I wonder if this is from the glass or the metal? Jim

Subscribed!!

I was watching this video a few weeks back and as I bought a Pentax Spotmatic here in Japan… I went to the lens section at the vintage camera store near suitengumae here in Tokyo.. imagine my surprise when I found the Primotar E for less than 50 bucks. Never pulled the trigger faster and I have never regretted it ahaha

I will add this for my student playlist

Thank you, love the video and also the one about the 50 mm. I was wondering why there is not one Nikon lens listed. Hope you can shine a light on some Nikkors also like the Nikon 55 mm f/2.8 micro

Great video sir, thank you. If you had a few words about Minolta's fast 50's what would you say or how would they generally line-up with this group? Thank you.

I thought the Helios was king of the swirl until I happened upon a Primoplan 59mm f1.8 in an estate sale. It is a truly otherworldly bokeh king and I'm surprised it's not mentioned in the swrly bokeh category!

I just discovered your channel as my interest and curiosity for vintage lenses has appeared out of nowhere. First of all - Thank you for all the knowledge you share with us all and the through the videos. If i may ask - What M42 adapter would you recommend to get for the SMC Takumar 50mm 1.4/Carl Zeiss Pancolar 50mm 1.8? I currently shoot with a Sony A7iii. Thanks once again :)

Besides bellows, extension tubes can also work well for extreme close ups.

You have to do some videos on how you get these shots, marvelous...

Love your videos.. Could you do a similar video for 135mm lenses...

There is another category of macro I would consider, and that is document copying. I generally like to make copies of my tax records every year. For better or for worse, the US has no standard for the size for tax documents so they can range from standard letter size paper down to odd post card size. I find it awkward and slow using a scanner so I use an APSC sensor DSLR on a copy stand. The process is then pretty quick. I usually set the focus to capture an 81/2 x11 area regardless of document size. I've tried the Pentax f4 macro takumar, which is a fine lens. I find that I get slightly but noticeabley better edge to edge sharpness with a Russian 50 mm f2.8 macro usually set to f8 or f11. The engraving is in cyrillic which I can't translate but I'll try to describe the letters: (Backwoods "N") ("H") (triangle looking letter) ( lower case "y") ("C") ("T") ("A") ("P") - ("6") ("1" or an "I") (upside down "V") ("/") ("3"). Please forgive my awkward way of describing this lens. This was painful to type in and maybe even more painful to read, but I think the lens is worth having. Update: I was looking at a eBay listing from a Russian seller and I think I found the translation that may be close to the Russian lens I have: Industar 61 L/Z 2.8/50

Great video! thanks for the information. Do you have any opinion on the Rikenon 55mm f1.4 (m42)?