With the advent of mirrorless cameras, there was a shift in registration distance for lenses. That opened possibilities to use existing lenses on these newer mounts.
Check out Fotodiox lens adapters through my B&H Photo Video affiliate link.
This is all about flange focal distance. It’s the distance from the lens mount ring to the sensor or film plane. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flange_focal_distance
Older camera systems have a long distance. Newer camera systems have a short distance. So that means with something between an old lens and a new mount you can make the combination work.
The distance is measured in millimeters.
A few examples:
- Canon FD: 42mm
- Canon EF: 44mm
- Canon EF-M: 18mm
- Nikon F: 46.5mm
- Nikon Z: 16mm
- M42: 45.46mm
- L39: 28.8mm
A little test you can do is holding a lens like the EF 50mm in front of the M50 camera without a lens. Moving it back and forth shows where that registration distance is… the same as the thickness of the adapter.
The details of adapters are not so simple.
Let’s talk about some of the adapter types…
The cheapest and most common have no control through the camera or any levers.
- Cheapest more available type.
- The simplest option for old film era lenses because you don’t need anything more.
- If your lens doesn’t have a manual aperture then you will not be able to adjust it. This is the case for Canon EF lenses. You can see the two that I have would not work with a basic adapter.
There are adapters that have a mechanical way to control aperture. This depends on the lens being adapted. Only certain ones have mechanical properties to them that allow this type to work.
- Some older lenses had a physical lever for controlling aperture. In my case I have a Nikon F-mount lens with the lever and an M42 lens with something similar.
- The adapter I have for F-mount does physically adjust the adapter, but it is imprecise with no way to set a specific value.
Some control through the camera.
- There are adapters that allow for some level of control.
- For example, the official Nikon F to Z mount adapter can control aperture, but does not have a motor for autofocus with D-type lenses.
- These are better than basic adapters when you need some level of control through the camera.
- There are other adapters that have quirks or limitations like not being able to do a special focusing mode that a native lens would be able to do.
Adapters with full control through the camera.
- These adapters allow for the same amount of lens control compared to a native lens usually.
- The official Canon EF lens adapters for EF-M and the RF mount have full control.
Speedbooster adapters (focal reducer)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecompressor
- These adapters take lenses meant for a larger format such as Full-Frame but focus the light into the area of a smaller format like APS-C.
- It reduces focal length and increases lens speed.
- You can see that my Viltrox 0.71x speedbooster is physically shorter than the standard adapter and it has optical glass inside.
- Most of these adapters are fully electronic and work with a specific lens and mount combination.
- These tend to be some of the most expensive types of adapters.
- Expect overall image quality to depend on the optics of the speedbooster.
Other more obscure adapters
- Check out Fotodiox lens adapters through my B&H Photo Video affiliate link.
- The company Fotodiox has a large number of speciality adapters from tilt/shift to internal iris and auto focusing.
- Canon’s official EF to RF adapter with a built-in variable ND filter or circular polarizer. Their adapters also allow for a custom control ring.
I hope that helped you understand what lens adapters for mirrorless lens adapters do. Having a change in flange focal distance allowed for a lot of inventive adapters to be created. It’s a reason to hold on to your older lenses and a reason to pick up a mirrorless camera if you haven’t yet.
The official Canon EF-EOS M adapter (B&H Photo Video, Amazon, Used on KEH, and eBay.
Metabones Speed Booster 0.71x Adapter for Canon EF to EF-M Mount (B&H Photo Video, Amazon)
Viltrox EF-EOS M2 Speed Booster 0.71x Lens Adapter (Amazon, eBay, B&H Photo Video, and used on KEH.
Below are the subtitles for the attached video if you prefer to read it than watch…
Hey, this is Scott of Photography Banzai.
Today we're
talking about attaching non-native
lenses to mirrorless cameras.
There are a lot of adapters out there. I'm gonna go over
why they work, and a few of the different
types. So let's get started! All of this
about the flange focal distance. It's the
distance between the lens mount... that
metal ring you see. It's a bayonet mount
usually. And then the sensor plane or
film plane. So at the most basic level,
older lenses have a longer distance and
newer lenses have a shorter distance. All
this means is that having something
between the older lens and the newer
camera makes it work properly.
That flange focal distance is measured in
millimeters. I'm going to talk about a
few different mounts and their
measurements. Just helps you get an idea
of how it all works together. Most of my
current equipment is Canon, so I'm going
to use them as the main example. They had
the FD mount, which is 42 millimeters for
that flange focal distance. And the EF
mount.. DSLR.. SLRs, but that is 44
millimeters. So they actually made it a
little bit longer than the older FD
mount. And the EF-M mount, which is the
M50 that I have. It is 18 millimeters.
That difference between 44 and 18 allows the
EF lenses to work on the EF-M cameras
with the proper adapter. Another example
is the Nikon F-mount. It's 46.5 mm...
So that's even a
little bit longer than the EF mount from
Canon. And Nikon's new Z-mount is 16
millimeters. So that's even shorter than
the canon EF-M mount.
And I also have an M42 lens. It's an older film lens. Pentax...
A lot of other little companies. Some
Russian lenses are in that M42 screw mount.
That's 45.46mm for that flange focal distance.
I have a Canon EOS 30D. It has a
standard EF mount. You can see that
distance on there. It's a large area
inside. Because they had a mirror. They
had various optics that they needed to
fit inside there which explains why
they're so long compared to the new
mirrorless cameras that don't need that
technology inside. Because they have an
electronic viewfinder. I can actually
hold the EF 50mm lens up to the
M50 camera, and if I get the distance
right between the lens and the camera
don't even need an adapter. You'll still
see a sharp image in the back of screen.
Because you can basically get that flange
focal distance when you're moving it
back and forth. Of course, there'll be a
lot of extra light in there that you
don't want. But it does work for the most part.
The specific details on lens
adapters are not so simple. There's a lot
of them. There's a lot of different types,
which I'll go over some of them in this
video. Help you out. Try to get you an idea of what you might need.
The cheapest and most available
lens adapters have no information going
between the lens and the camera itself. So think about old film era lenses that have
an aperture ring on them. They don't need
the aperture control through the camera.
Those work just fine. You just need
basically a separator to get the right
distance. If you have some old M42 lenses
like the one that I do have. Has an
aperture ring on the lens itself. Just
keep in mind there is usually a setting
in the camera you need to toggle to
make it possible to take photos without
the camera sensing a lens attached.
However, these basic adapters do not work
with all lenses, of course. With these EF
lenses they do not have an aperture ring...
So you need a more advanced
adapter to get aperture control through
the camera. Otherwise, you just will have
to use the largest aperture and that's it.
Some adapters allow for mechanical
control of the aperture. So we don't need
actual data connections between the lens
and the camera. You get that mechanical
control. I do have a Nikon F-mount lens
that has a mechanical aperture on it. And
the adapter that I have has a little
ring on there that physically moves that
aperture lever back and forth. It's not
ideal. It does not allow you to get exact
aperture sizes, but it works well enough
that you can adjust your aperture if you
need it super wide or more narrow.
Other adapters allow you some level of
control through the camera. So, for
example, the Nikon official adapters from
F to Z mount allow you to control the
aperture. They allow you to control
autofocus, with most of their most recent
lenses for the DSLRs, but not all of the
older ones. For the D-type lenses that do
not have a motor inside the lens
itself... like the one that I have. You
can't do autofocus.
There are definitely little quirks here
and there with some adapters you need to
know about. But there are so many
different types of combinations. It's
really going to be up to what you have
or what you want to use. Other adapters
allow you full control from the
camera to the lens and back. So with my
EF to EOS M adapters, the EF-M mount... I
get full control for those EF lenses. The
aperture, the autofocus... everything works.
There are speed booster adapters
available. These are a special type.
Usually third parties make these, and
they're called focal reducers. What it
does is that you take a larger format
like full-frame. Put it into an APS-C
sized area. Gives you a focal reduction.
And you get more light for that smaller
area. I have this Viltrox 0.71x
speed booster that I use with the EF
lenses to the EF-M camera, which is APS-C...
You can see that this Viltrox adapter
is actually shorter than the standard EF
to EOS M adapter. And it also has some glass
inside that allows it to do that speed
boosting ability. That focal reduction.
For Canon's newest mount, the RF Mount,
which is mirrorless and it's also
full-frame for the moment. You have a few
unique official adapters. You've got one
for filters. Where you can do a circular
polarizer, or a variable ND filter. So
those are pretty interesting. There are a
lot of third-party stores and companies
that sell very unique adapters. I'm gonna
go over a few of them. Fotodiox has a
huge amount of adapters on the website.
For example, they have a tilt-shift
adapter. So you put a standard DSLR or
SLR lens, and then the mirrorless camera,
with that tilting adapter. That allows you
to do things like architecture with
straight lines. Because you can
physically shift the lens without buying
a specialty lens. So that's pretty cool!
They have internal iris adapters. Also,
they have auto focusing adapters for
very old lenses. Having that change in
flange focal distance from the older
cameras to the new mirrorless ones allows for
a lot of possibilities with adapters.
So I just scratched the surface here with a
few of them, but know that they're out there.
And a lot of them are pretty
interesting. Might want to check them out!
Hope you enjoyed this video on lens
adapters for mirrorless cameras
with older lenses.
I'm Scott from Photography Banzai.
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Thanks again!