I was wondering if anyone is using M42 lenses using an M42 adapter on a Nikon F mount to M43 adapter? Something like this:

Amazon.com: M42 lens to Nikon DSLR Camera adapter Ring for D3 D700 D300 D200 D90 D80 D5000 D3000: Camera & Photo

I was thinking of getting this adapter so I can also use it on my Nikon DSLRs.

Any user experience would be appreciated. Thanks!

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Jonathan
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The register distance of a Nikon camera is greater than the register distance of an M42 lens, and the adapter must take up at least a few millmeters of space as well. So, in addition to taking a long time to change lenses and having to use stop-down metering, you will also not be able to focus to infinity. I'm not sure on the furthest focus distance, but I'd suspect it to be a few feet. Realistically, you're going to be stuck taking photos of flowers.

What Nikon do you have, and what M42 lenses? Unless you have really really good glass, you can likely find the comparable lens in Nikon-mount. As long as it's Ai or Ai-s, it will mount on any camera. If your camera is a D7000 or higher (D200, D300, D700, etc) then the lens will also meter. If your camera is a D40, D3000, D3100, D5000, D5100 then you can mount older non-Ai Nikon lenses (most easily identified because they will say Nikkor-_ with the blank being a letter), but they won't meter. M42 lenses work best on Pentax cameras, as the K-mount was designed with backwards compatibility in mind.

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Panasonic G2 - The "mini-SLR" for me. Panasonic 14-42mm, Olympus 40-150mm. Many Nikon lenses, but most often 24mm f/2.8, 50mm f/1.4, 55mm macro, Tamron Adaptall 90mm and 180mm lenses.

I have used a M42 50 mm on a Nikon D70, you can just use it for portrait with subjects in the 1-3 meters range, after that no focusing (unless you get an adapter with a lens, that degradate the image quality

The effect of this "extension" is relative to the focal length of the lens used. It is a larger percentage of the focal length when the focal length is shorter so the maximum focusing distance will be closer. When using teles, you would be able to focus to greater distances, but never to infinity.

I don't know how M42 lenses will work on a Nikon camera.

If I read your OP correctly, you'd like to also use M42 lenses with by using both adapter+ring (i.e. Nikon to on camera, M42 to Nikon on that). This is do-able and I do it with a similar Canon EOS adapter.

Because I had Canon cameras and EOS lenses, I bought an EOS to adapter and a M42 to Canon ring. I also use my OM to EOS adapter ring the same way. There were focus to infinity issues with the Canon, none I can see with cameras.

It's also a clever way to use adapted lenses on , because the rings cost so little, in contrast with having dedicated adapters for any adapted lens you might want to use.

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If you don't mind losing a considerable amount of focus room, probably something between 20 feet to infinity,depending on the lens, you can use that adapter to fit an M42 lens to a Nikon.

Here's the flange distances.
44.5mm for M42
46.4mm for Nikon-F, so any M43 lens sits further away from the sensor than its design intent.

In addition, the pictured adapter sits above the Nikon mount adding maybe another mm to the distance, aggravating the issue.

For some users, loss of infinity focus doesn't matter, so there is a place for this adapter.

The 2.1mm difference in flange distances alone means that with a 0mm thick adapter the maximum focusing distance for a 50mm lens would be about 9ft. Add 2mm for an adapter (a rather optimistic guess) maximum distance works out to something in the 2ft range.

I have used a m42 to nikon adapter.
This adapter has a correcting glass piece to achieve focus at infinity.
The adapter works fine with normal and tele lens, but with wide lens, images get very soft.
Without the correcting lens I loose focus at infinity but the images are sharper.
I have made lovely photos with the smc takumar 1.8/85 and a nikon d700 combo.
but forget it for anything wider than 50mm.
Adapters are cheap so it doesn't make sense using adapters with adapters.

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Even when using a single proper adaptor, you often have to shim the adaptor a little to get the exact distance between the lens and the sensor where it should be. Usually the distances are too short, you end up with a longer than expected MFD and you can focus past infinity - hence the need for shims. In most cases we are talking a fraction of a millimeter.

If you were to stack two adaptors together you would push the lens so far away you would create a macro type lens that was unable to focus from medium distance to infinity. Great for flowers and bugs and such, if that is the plan.

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Vernacular shooter/amateur photographer
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