[disconnekt]

Anyone have any experiance with this specific adapter?
They (K&F) currently have it on sale right now and Im tempted to buy it, but wanted some opinions on it before I pull the trigger on it or not. And before someone says "buy the OG adapter instead!", its out of my price range. Even the used ones online are ~$50 online (again, a bit out of my price range).

Here's the link:
K&F Concept M42 Screw Lenses to Pentax K Camera Mount Adapter

[BigMackCam]

I don't have that specific adapter, but I have several K&F Concept adapters and other products, and they're all excellent at the price point. Much better than I expected... good quality, and nicely finished.

[pepperberry farm]

there's two OEM adapters in the Marketplace here, both for about $40...

that's the only one I have any experience with...

[jatrax]

Depends on your use scenario. If you are just experimenting with M42 then I suppose it is worth a try. There are lots of ebay adapters, last time I checked at maybe $10 but quality is hit and miss. This one seems a bit better made from the picture but the problem has always been with the machining. The cheap ones are sometimes a little sloppy. You also (almost always) need to remove the lock spring as on the non-oem ones it can get your lens stuck to the camera.

If you are serious about M42 get the real one. It will cost at least $30-40 perhaps more but if you decide to resell you will get that back. Value of non-pentax adapters used is essentially nil. With the real one you can have total confidence in using it.

I tried numerous cheap adapters and finally just bought the real thing, quite satisfied and if I had bought the Pentax one first I would have been money ahead.

[Not a Number]

If you are patient you can find the genuine Pentax branded adapters on eBay for $30 USD or less. Just set a watch filter and be prepared to jump on any BIN listings that come up at a decent price.

Edit: at this moment there is one listed for $29.99 + $6.75 shipping.

[erichope]

I've brought four of these K&F Concept 42->pk adapters, and so far so good. Much better than those $5 cheapies!

[disconnekt]

I've brought four of these K&F Concept 42->pk adapters, and so far so good. Much better that those $5 cheapies!

Was it the exact ones in the link? Because my main thing was that I'd rather spend money with a well-known good quality 3rd party brand for my accessory needs in (this case an adapter), than a random no-name cheap brand which the many threads on here have shown 99% of the time are very poor quality & damages everything.

Plus the thing is the K&F adapter fits in my budget & I can buy right now, whereas even with a used OEM product I would have to save up ~4 month for one, and probably have to wait longer for one to pop thats within the "4 months from now" budget

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Last edited by BigMackCam; 05-07-2019 at 12:40 PM. Reason: Edited vulgarity

[stevebrot]

A careful examination of the K&F example photos shows that the adapter has a chamferred corner on the tang end by the red dot and again on the one adjacent to the retention spring. It is that chamfer done rather than a square cut that differentiates most (all?) non-genuine adapters and which has been associated with the tendency to overrotate slightly and become stuck in the mount. (The square cut edge on the genuine solidly engages the body-side spring). As noted above, the reported quality is supposed to be good and the price is certainly quite reasonable.

My advice, as always, is to try and source the genuine adapter. The cold chill of realizatioin when one of the brand-X adapters will not rotate out is true panic. I have only had it happen once, but once was enough. Mine happened with a white box, Bower-branded adapter from Adorama. It took me about four hours of mindless fiddling before it finally slipped free. I have no idea what I did to get it loose. As has been mentioned on other posts on this site, last resort is to cut it out or remove the K-mount from the camera and pry the body release spring manually from underneath.

If you do buy the K&F:

• Remove the flat metal spring as first step before you even think of attaching it to a camera. (Set the spring and screw aside.)
• Carefully attach the adapter to a lens you might care less for than others, flat side to. If the thread starts to bind, don't attempt to force or work it past a rough spot, remove immediately. Your lens is not intended to act as a tap for cleaning badly cut threads. The adapter should screw on with little resistance and snug up with the adapter's flange tight against the lens flange.
• Remove the adapter from the lens and carefully insert it into the mount throat on the body, taking care to align the red dots.
• Rotate the adapter into the mount. You should be able to mount it using finger a finger nail in the index notch and finger pressure alone. Most (all?) brand-x adapters are a tighter fit than the genuine*, but overly tight is not a good thing. The tangs on the camera side may be stainless steel, but they should not be used to shave excess thickness off the plated brass adapter. Any shards released would not be a good think to have in your shutter or on the sensor. The adapter will not lock in place due to the retention spring being removed. Note that the face of the adapter should be slightly inset below the face of the K-mount flange or at very most, exactly flush with its face. Any protrusion will disallow infinity focus.
• Carefully screw your lens onto the mounted adapter, taking care to note body clearance for any projections (e.g. the Auto/Manual switch). If there is any contact with the body other than at the lens flange, stop and reverse the lens out of the adapter. That lens will not work with your camera. It should snug up gradually against the camera's mount flange and when firmly mounted, you should not be able to see any part of the bright adapter body through any gaps. If you can, there may be a problem with the lens not having a broad enough lens flange. There are work-around solutions on this site.
• Work the focus ring and aperture ring. Ideally, the lens should remain firmly in place in the mount despite the retention spring being removed. If not, some other means will have to be used to hold everything in place.

Don't be concerned if the focus index mark on the lens is not at the top. They almost never line up, not even on a Pentax camera.


Steve

[Jonathan Mac]

I use K&F adapters to mount non-native lenses on my Fujifilm cameras and they're of good quality and work well. For M42 to K I have only ever used the genuine ones as I had a bad experience with a third party one in a shop (it got stuck and the shops's repair technician needed to take it away and remove it from my camera).

If you're patient then you can get them for a reasonable price.

[erichope]

Was it the exact ones in the link? Because my main thing was that I'd rather spend money with a well-known good quality 3rd party brand for my accessory needs in (this case an adapter), than a random no-name cheap brand which the many threads on here have shown 99% of the time are very poor quality & damages everything.

Plus the thing is the K&F adapter fits in my budget & I can buy right now, whereas even with a used OEM product I would have to save up ~4 month for one, and probably have to wait longer for one to pop thats within the "4 months from now" budget

I believe so. I would guess that K&F make just the one model. The adapter pictured in the ad looks like the one in front of me as I type this. On the other hand, so did those $5 pieces of junk. My experience is that the K&F adapter is better machined: it's round and the threads don't bind. I've tried other cheapies, but they were so poorly made that they weren't usable; e.g. not round (and therefore can't be mounted in the body) and nearly impossible to remove from the lens (if you can get it screwed on at all).

[disconnekt]

I believe so. I would guess that K&F make just the one model. The adapter pictured in the ad looks like the one in front of me as I type this. On the other hand, so did those $5 pieces of junk. My experience is that the K&F adapter is better machined: it's round and the threads don't bind. I've tried other cheapies, but they were so poorly made that they weren't usable; e.g. not round (and therefore can't be mounted in the body) and nearly impossible to remove from the lens (if you can get it screwed on at all).

Yeah, I remember that they used to have another one (similiar to the FotodioX made one here FotodioX Mount Adapter for M42 Type 1 Lens to Pentax M42-PK-V1) a few years ago (which I havent seen from them in a while) which they called "Version 1", though I've read that style doesnt allow infinity focus

[stevebrot]

Because my main thing was that I'd rather spend money with a well-known good quality 3rd party brand for my accessory needs...

A well-known name is no guarantee of quality and good product from part of the line does not mean it is all good. A good example might be Fotodiox. They offer some really good product. Up until recently, they offered an M42-to-K-mount adapter with their own branding that was carried by B&H and other vendors. That product abruptly disappeared from the market (not even listed anymore on the Fotodiox Web site) several months ago. The Amazon listing is still active and a sampling of the negative user reviews show complaints of jammed mounts, metal shards, poorly cut threads, and lack of infinity focus. At present, B&H sells only flanged (non-infinity) adapters, the Kipon inner flange model, and the official Pentax.

K&F rebrands product from other makers. They don't really make anything, though they do rebrand and sell a wide range of photo accessories as well as very inexpensive fitness watches and set-top TV antennas. I was quite taken by the pocketable Android mini HD video projector with "HDMI excuse". Some of their stuff (e.g. bags and flash) are actually mid-market priced in direct competition with name-brand offerings from the same makers. I would treat their M42 adapter the same as similar items from other "well-known" brands, with abundant caution.


Steve