M42 lens mount

M42

Auto-Takumar 1:3.5 35mm
Type	Screw
External diameter	42mm
Inner diameter	41mm
Tabs	none
Flange	45.5 mm
Connectors	Auto aperture

The M42 lens mount is a screw thread mounting standard for attaching lenses to 35 mm cameras, primarily single-lens reflex models. It is more accurately known as the M42 × 1 mm standard, which means that it is a metric screw thread of 42 mm diameter and 1 mm thread pitch. (The M42 lens mount should not be confused with the T-mount, which shares the 42mm throat diameter, but differs by having a 0.75mm thread pitch.) It was first used in Zeiss' Contax S of 1949; this East German branch of Zeiss also sold cameras under the Pentacon name; after merger with other East German photographic manufacturers, the name Praktica was used. M42 thread mount cameras first became well known under the Praktica brand, and thus the M42 mount is known as the Praktica thread mount. Since there were no proprietary elements to the M42 mount, many other manufacturers used it; this has led to it being called the Universal thread mount or Universal screw mount by many. The M42 mount was popularized in the United States by Pentax; thus, it is also known as the Pentax thread mount, despite the fact that Pentax did not originate it.

The M42 mount was first developed by Carl Zeiss at their Jena plant in 1938 at the request of the KW camera company for their Praktica line, which had previously used M40 (40 mm by 1 mm DIN).

The first lenses were plain stop-down design but many manufacturers extended the M42 lens mount to provide extra features. The first innovation was the pre-select type, which allowed an aperture value to be pre-selected without actually closing the aperture, with a separate ring to close down the aperture quickly to the chosen value. This gave the user the benefit of comfortable framing and focusing with a bright viewfinder and clear focus separation, and then closing the aperture without the need to remove the eye from the eyepiece. A further development followed with "auto" lenses, which have a pin in the mount which closes the aperture against a spring to the chosen setting when it is pushed. This was adopted as a common standard by virtually all lens manufacturers. Cameras designed for these lenses have a bar in the bottom of the mount which depresses the pin when the shutter is released. The first cameras, such as the Praktica Nova range, used physical finger pressure on the shutter button to operate the bar and close the aperture, allowing a stopped-down preview of the depth of field before the shutter fired. However, this function was removed in later Praktica models because some users found it was possible, with longer exposure times, to release the shutter button and open the aperture before the shutter had closed. The bar on Pentax Spotmatic cameras is operated by spring pressure with timing linked to the shutter, but these cameras also had a separate switch for the light meter circuit which closed the aperture and gave the depth of field preview in this way. To allow auto lenses to be used on earlier cameras without the bar, many lenses were provided with a switch or button to put the lens into stop-down mode, commonly referred to as the Auto-Manual or A/M switch.