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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