Last Updated on 12/26/2016 by Chris Gampat
I’ve mentioned this in the past, but I have always felt that a big reason why Sony has had the success it’s had with its mirrorless system, namely the A7 series cameras, is thanks in part to the vast array of third-party AF lens adapters.
This has been one downside to the Fujifilm system, in my estimation, since there are no AF adapters at this point, there is no easy ‘try-before-you-buy’ option if you are a photographer who relies on AF (which most of us these days do). It looks like this could be changing, though, as a video demonstration of the first (to our knowledge) third-party Fujifilm AF adapter has surfaced.
As you can see in the video, the user is shooting a Zeiss Contax lens, the 50mm F/1.4, and it is able to communicate with the X-E2. Just seeing the aperture value accurately change on the camera when he changes the aperture ring is great! As someone who uses third-party MF lenses quite often, it is always annoying to not have that aperture data in the EXIF, so simply having adapters that can accurately communicate with the camera is a nice step forward on its own.
But then, to make matters even more exciting, this user then goes on to demonstrate that the AF is functioning and seems to be fairly quick. It’s not instant, or but it seemed to be totally usable for a still life or portrait situation.
Now there are a few things to note before getting too excited about this adapter. First, it is simply a prototype, there is no time to market or ETA attached to it. It could come out next month or it could come out next year, or it may never come out. So don’t get too excited yet.
Secondly, that is a Contax N lens, and I am willing to bet that most of you don’t have any old Contax N lenses/cameras lying around. But the key here is in the details. Apparently, Contax N’s AF code is based on a variation of the Canon EF AF code, so it *should* be possible-to-fairly-easy to take what they learned from making this adapter to develop an X-EF version. Which would be huge, for sure!
I know I am excited about the prospect of Fujifilm compatible AF adapters. I will be keeping an eye on this one and will keep you all updated on any further developments.