If you’re into vintage lenses, there’s a great chance that you also find bokeh lenses interesting. The bokeh effect remains particularly popular for dreamy portraits, creative projects, and night photography. As such, it’s not surprising to see significant interest in adapting these lenses to digital cameras. Fortunately, you have several M42 mount options that will work great even with most of today’s digital gear.

In the video above, Simon’s utak first explains the characteristics that make a bokeh great. Yes, there’s more to it that just blurred, out of focus areas in an image. Many vintage lenses are especially well-known for creating beautiful and distinct bokeh. Next, he narrows down the options for us, listing down 55mm to 58mm lenses from Japan, Germany and Russia. These include models from the popular Helios-44 series and Takumar lenses.

As always, Simon also included some sample photos to back up his recommendations. Hopefully, these will help you make comparisons and take your pick for your next bokehlicious M42 lenses!

Have you adapted any of the vintage lenses above to your digital camera? Share your experience and photos with us in the comments below. You can also chime in our group discussions if you’re already part of the Photofocus Community!