1) Camera Menu, go to end and Enable the Aperture Ring use (only has to be done once)
2) Dismount any lens on camera
3) Switch A/M on lens to M, Switch AF/MF on camera to MF, Mount the m42 adapter
4) screw in the lens, turn on camera and select 50mm as focal length
5) select Av mode, you can also choose other settings like Auto-ISO if you want
6) Twist aperture ring to wide open (lowest f-number) and use this to select focus (since DoF is thinnest at lowest f-number)
7) When done composing and focusing (for composing you might sometimes have to stop down the lens temporarily), twist aperture ring to whatever aperture you want
8) once the shutter speed gets adjusted by the camera (you can see this in viewfinder and on LCD screen, and on top screen if your camera models has one) you can press shutter
This is the proper chain. Things like 2sec timer, or full manual mode (without auto-ISO!), or interval shooting or Catch in Focus (have to enable the correct AF mode in camera, check your camera manual) might require slight tweaks to this chain. You can also use Live view with focus peaking to compose and find focus, but this doesn't change anything except that you will look at the back LCD instead of through the OVF.
You can use M mode if you want to choose the shutter speed and ISO by hand, instead of letting the camera do that for you (with some lenses the camera metering might be inaccurate)
Originally posted by csbtrod Do I need to do anything with the outer ring (one farthest from the camera)?
The lens has two rings, right? One is for aperture (f-numbers) and the other is the focusing ring (has distance scales). Or do you have that special version of the macro takumar? Because for that one I have no idea, never had one
If its a Preset style lens, it has a focus ring and two aperture rings and one of these is just a hard stop, so you don't have to look away from the viewfinder to find the aperture that you want after you are done focusing. The other one actually moves the aperture blades. You don't have to use the first, hard stop, one, but it can be helpful. For example, if you know you want to use f8, then you select f8 on the ring that doesn't move the aperture blades, you focus and compose with wide open aperture, then you just twist the aperture blade ring all the way, which will be what you selected earlier: f8.
Basically, at this point you mostly need practice and experimentation to get things down. Congrats on the cool lens. If you will be using many manual lenses, think about buying lens hood for them. It can help a lot with the old lens coatings. But the macro might not need a lens hood, if the front element is recessed enough as is
Last edited by Na Horuk; 09-06-2016 at 05:22 PM.