Hanimex 400mm F/6.3 (M42) – a slight disaster

My second purchase on eBay was a Hanimex 400mm F/6.3 telephoto lens, which came in its original brown leather case & with a skylight filter.

It was £24.99, and as an M42 lens I thought it was a perfect purchase.

I’d already bought the Tokina mirror lens, and after reading a few reviews about the donut bokeh on mirror lenses being an annoyance to some photographers, I thought I’d buy a 400mm ‘normal’ telephoto lens as well, just in case the mirror lens doesn’t work out.

I knew it would be a heavy lens, but at least this way, I’d have the best of both worlds: a portable mirror lens, and a long range telephoto lens for when I need a tripod.

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But it wasn’t M42

However, when it arrived, I soon realised it wasn’t an M42 mount lens, despite the listing specifying it had the M42 screw thread.

It wasn’t that it was a different mount – in fact, there was no mount at all. Just a hollow pole at the rear of the lens.

If there was a bayonet or screw thread, I may have been able to source an adapter of some kind.

But if there ever had been a mount of some kind at the rear of the lens, it looked like it had been removed – meaning, that I now had to source some kind of impossible adapter, to adapt a mount-less lens to my Canon EF-S mount.

Problem was… I couldn’t find any suitable adapters online, because none of the adapters I found would simply plop onto the end – they were either bayonet or screw adapters.

I thought it might have been a T-mount, as I’ve read online that M42 is often mistaken for T-mount. However, after sourcing a T-mount adapter & buying it, I found – upon delivery – that it wouldn’t fit. The centre of the adapter was too small, and the rear of the lens too big.

So, the lens had to be returned. A shame, really, as it would’ve been a great addition to my new collection of vintage camera lenses.

From a cursory glance through the lens, holding my camera up to its rear, it looked like it had a long throw – and suitable for my usage.

But, with no way of mounting it to my camera – not even with adapters – I would’ve had to manufacture my own kind of adapter to use the lens. That would’ve made the lens a really expensive purchase, as I don’t own any of the appropriate machinery or tools for such a job.

I suspect it would be cheaper to buy a brand new Tamron, Sigma or Canon 75-300mm telephoto zoom – or even a Canon L series lens – than to source the machinery & tools, materials and skills to manufacture a lens adapter to use specifically, and only, with this particular lens.

Lesson learnt: best to double check the lens mounting, and try to avoid eBay listings that don’t visually show said mounting – as not everything you can buy on eBay is perfect.

– Chris JK.