“There are lots of readily available adapters—but I find they offer no advantage over a standard helicoid and mounting plate”, says Terry F. Godlove. A professor of philosophy and religion at Hofstra University, Terry loves tinkering around with vintage lenses, to makes their mounts compatible with modern mirrorless cameras.
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Lens adapters are great, but lets face it, they’re the weakest link in your setup.
We have some news to share with you that’s really quite exciting; or is it? A recent report has stated that a new lens mount adapter will allow Nikon Z6 and Z7 users to adapt Sony E mount lenses to their cameras. While this new mount is exciting from a technological standpoint, is it really exciting when you consider that lens adapters just make your camera bigger and less responsive? Do we really need so many adapters on the marketplace? Why do we continually want to add more heft to the cameras we carry around? Join us after the break to find out more. Continue reading…
One of the big draws to any mirrorless system is the ability to use old adapted glass as a way to both save money and introduce some creative imperfection into your images. Fujifilm’s X-Series cameras come with the styling of older vintage cameras, and as such many old manual focus film lenses actually look right at home on a camera like the [amazon_textlink asin=’B01A8DUR74′ text=’X-Pro 2′ template=’ProductLink’ store=’thephobl-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’a63e7138-23cc-11e7-bd2e-4704999c5609′] or [amazon_textlink asin=’B01N10DKLK’ text=’X-T20′ template=’ProductLink’ store=’thephobl-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’acbbaaf7-23cc-11e7-b0b8-fdbdbba9b2da’].
Utilizing adapted lenses on your Fujifilm X-Series camera is pretty simple, but for those of you who may be new to the idea, let me just break it down for you real quick. There is, to my knowledge, only one adapter currently that works ‘natively’ with the X-Series cameras, and that is the Fujifilm produced Leica adapter. This adapter communicates with the camera and has some little niceties that third party adapters don’t, but unless you already have Leica glass lying around, we don’t really recommend running out and dropping money on those – at least from a budget minded perspective it makes no sense. Continue reading…
Many photographers, myself included, often tout the ability of mirrorless cameras to utilize old film era lenses to save money and try new focal lengths without breaking the bank. But when does this make sense, and when does it start to be a bad decision?
Well, the whole benefit to it is utilizing lenses you may already own, thereby saving you money. Where some people go wrong is by going out and finding film era glass to buy specifically for their mirrorless camera. Ok, let me back up, because buying an old lens on its own isn’t a bad idea, but there is a point where the cost of that old manual glass starts to come really close to native glass you can get for your camera and at that point, it makes much more sense to just save a little longer and get the native glass for your camera.
If you thought mounting a full frame lens onto a mirrorless camera just imagine what attaching a massive telephoto lens in front of your smartphone would look like. Well actually we don’t have to imagine any more because Sony Alpha Rumors posted a mock up created by Facebook user Usperedi that shows a Sony 500mm f4 G lens plus the requisite adapter Alpha to E-mount adapter attached to a QX1. The whole thing looks ridiculous especially since it’s all clipped onto a thin and tiny Sony Xperia smartphone.
Of course it’s possible for someone to mount the whole thing together. After all Sony is showing off the QX1 equipped with a Sony FE 70-200mm f/4.0 G OSS lens (which you can check out after the break) at the IFA tech show happening in Germany right now.
There are plenty of other more insanely large lenses out there in the world. We’d really like to see the someone attach Sigma’s way larger 800mm f/5.6 EX DG APO HSM or 300-800mm F5.6 EX DG APO HSM lenses to the QX1.
Last year Sony surprised us with a new set of accessory lenses to turn your smartphone. Now the Japanese electronics firm is doubling down with a new QX1 adapter that will let users shoot with their E-mount lenses.
QX1 comes with a 20.1 megapixel APS-C size Exmor CMOS sensor paired with a BIONZ X. If the specs sound familiar that’s because the QX1 is essentially a Sony A5000 even down to the same 25-point contrast detection autofocus system. The big difference is the QX1 lacks a screen or any physical camera body – but there is a pop-up flash.
However, Sony isn’t just re-purposing its now replaced A5000 guts. The Japanese company also claims it has improved area-specific noise reduction, allowing the sensor to produce “stunning low-light images.“ As you might expect the APS-C camera accessory can shoot RAW images and even 1080p video at 30fps. We’ve got even more from Sony, click past the jump to read on.
A couple months ago, Kenko announced a new set of macro extension tubes for both Micro Four Thirds and Sony NEX. These extension tubes make it possible to use any MFT- or E-mount lens for macro photography, by spacing it further from the sensor and subsequently retracting the closest focusing point. What makes these particular extension tubes special is that they feature electronic contacts which allow for communication between lens and camera, thus retaining full autofocus capability and aperture control. In this video review, we are presenting the Kenko DG Extension Tube Set for Micro Four Thirds. The NEX version has been briefly discussed in this article. Continue reading…
