Adapters M42 to Olympus OM

Hi there! I have spent some time trying to find adapters to fit M42

lenses to my OM bodies but with little success. Has anybody found

something and how good is the adapter you found? Thanks a lot and

good pictures to all.

Well Philippe, the problem is, the flange to film distance of the OM is 46mm. The M42 distance is 45.5mm. Thus you only have .5mm to work with in designing an adapter, that is if you want the M42 lenses to be able to focus to infinity. I have seen an adapter, but it was thicker than .5mm and employed a single weak negative element to allow inf. focus. It was poorly designed and the M42 threaded front was not deep enough to allow any of the lenses I tried to be seated all the way. At any rate, the element would have acted as a weak telenegative effect and also degraded the quality somewhat. As an option, if you have several nice M42 mount lenses that you don't want to part with, why not just purchase a suitable body? An average condition Spotmatic body should not be more than $65 to $85 on ebay. A Fujica ST605 or ST701 would be even less & offer brighter focusing screens, but are not as well made.

 

Regards,

 

John

I bought just such an adapter on eBay but it is useless as I cannot get

anything like infinity focus on the 300mm lens that I put it on. In fact after

putting it on the lens, I couldn't even get it off again!

I also have one made by Rowi or Hama

 

It is not at all suitable for wideangles, but rather for longer tele, since it also functions as a 1.1x TC.

 

Now after some experience with it I wouldn't recommend it to anyone...

Thanks a lot to all of you for your help. Sorry I'm late. I didn't realise the forum goes on. I understand I have to look for M42 bodies. Good pictures to all.