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Using non-M43 lenses on M43 bodies with adaptors

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Ben of the North

Ben of the North

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HI!
I'm new to M43 as some of you already know, and I have a questine regarding the use of non-M43 lenses on M43 bodies.

I have a Pana G85, what adaptors for what lens mount works well on M43? With auto-focus working. Do you have any suggestions?

I already know there's no Fuji X-Mount adaptors for M43, what about the rest?
 
The only auto-focus lenses that are not specifically designed for m43 are the 43 lenses by Olympus and Panasonic, and some by Sigma that were designed for 43.

Among those, some of the later Zuiko lenses are configured to allow contrast detection auto-focus. The 14-54 Mk2 and the 25mm pancake come to mind, along with the "kit" 14-42, and 40-150 that came with the E-410/510 and later evolt dslrs. I think the 70-300 and 9-18 might as well.

The ones that weren't configured for contrast detect auto-focus will work, they'll just focus more slowly.

Nikon, Canon, etc aren't going to auto-focus on an Oly body.
 
Metabones does have adapters for Canon-EF lenses to m43 bodies that support AF.
 
If you don't mind using older, film era lenses, and using manual focus, there are many cheap, dumb adapters for a large number of mounts to m4/3. of course you should shoot in either aperture priority or manual and set aperture and focus on the lens manually. Not as hard as it might seem.

Peace.

John
 
Ben of the North said:
HI!
I'm new to M43 as some of you already know, and I have a questine regarding the use of non-M43 lenses on M43 bodies.

I have a Pana G85, what adaptors for what lens mount works well on M43? With auto-focus working. Do you have any suggestions?

I already know there's no Fuji X-Mount adaptors for M43, what about the rest?
Click to expand...
Keep in mind that when you use an adapter from a larger format you are also sacrificing sharpness, though the speed booster variety minimize the loss of sharpness. A full frame lens is going to suffer quite a bit. Also you have size and weight penalties from larger format lenses. Unless you already have some lenses you want to adapt it's usually a better bet to obtain M43 lenses
 
greg 123 said:
Keep in mind that when you use an adapter from a larger format you are also sacrificing sharpness, though the speed booster variety minimize the loss of sharpness. A full frame lens is going to suffer quite a bit.
Click to expand...
I don't believe that is generally true. It's not my experience at least. Here's an image from an old full frame lens that is, IMHO, quite sharp. I have plenty of other shots with a variety of lenses that are sharp.



Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 AIS on a plain adapter.
Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 AIS on a plain adapter.



--
Mark
 
Mark9473 said:
greg 123 said:
Keep in mind that when you use an adapter from a larger format you are also sacrificing sharpness, though the speed booster variety minimize the loss of sharpness. A full frame lens is going to suffer quite a bit.
Click to expand...
I don't believe that is generally true. It's not my experience at least. Here's an image from an old full frame lens that is, IMHO, quite sharp. I have plenty of other shots with a variety of lenses that are sharp.
Click to expand...
I suspect that you have several excellent lenses which explains your experience.
Mark9473 said:
Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 AIS on a plain adapter.
Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 AIS on a plain adapter.

--
Mark
Click to expand...
While that's a nice image that's reasonably sharp it isn't as sharp as a 75 1.8.

When using a small portion of a lens that has been designed for a larger format you have less line widths per picture height because the image circle is using a smaller area of the lens. There's no way around it. If the lens was an outstanding performer at 45MP on a D850 then it would probably still be an outstanding lens on an EM1 at 16MP. If you were to use that lens at on an EM1ii in 50MP it wouldn't be as sharp as the 45MP on the D850. Results of a mediocre full frame lens on a EM1 would be lucky to compete with native M43 lenses.
 
Last edited:
Agreed about the HR mode and about the 75/1.8 being one of the sharpest lenses out there. Few native m43 lenses can match it, that's clear enough.
 
greg 123 said:
Ben of the North said:
HI!
I'm new to M43 as some of you already know, and I have a questine regarding the use of non-M43 lenses on M43 bodies.

I have a Pana G85, what adaptors for what lens mount works well on M43? With auto-focus working. Do you have any suggestions?

I already know there's no Fuji X-Mount adaptors for M43, what about the rest?
Click to expand...
Keep in mind that when you use an adapter from a larger format you are also sacrificing sharpness, though the speed booster variety minimize the loss of sharpness. A full frame lens is going to suffer quite a bit. Also you have size and weight penalties from larger format lenses. Unless you already have some lenses you want to adapt it's usually a better bet to obtain M43 lenses
Click to expand...
It is a bit of a mixed bag really. Lenses made for a larger images circle often have the image cropped to the best (highest resolution) part of the lens. Focal reduction adapters (well made) actually improve the qualities of a lens and also project (focus more light) on to the sensor giving a brighter image to the value of usually one stop of light. Focal reduction adapters can also magnify lens faults - and have been known to cause blue-spot ghost re-reflections on to the sensors.

Lenses made for larger image circles are not always naturally huge. Most are larger simply because mirror-box cameras needed a longer flange focal distance to clear the mirror on the camera. Lenses made for RF camera style are of smaller build format - arguably of similar size to native oem M4/3 lenses.

Lenses made for other modern mirrorless mounts will be hard if not impossible to adapt because they need electronics to drive them. But fully manual lenses could work cross platform but even so it is always possible to go from a longer flange focal length mount system to a shorter one provided that the difference is not minimal. I have a MF lenses made to the M4/3 mount that I have successfully adpated to Sony E but it is impossible to adapt the other way around.

Of course unless you can use an electronic adapter for electronically driven lenses (EF-M4/3) then the lenses can only be used manually.
 
Mark9473 said:
greg 123 said:
Keep in mind that when you use an adapter from a larger format you are also sacrificing sharpness, though the speed booster variety minimize the loss of sharpness. A full frame lens is going to suffer quite a bit.
Click to expand...
I don't believe that is generally true. It's not my experience at least. Here's an image from an old full frame lens that is, IMHO, quite sharp. I have plenty of other shots with a variety of lenses that are sharp
Click to expand...
If you’re using better quality lenses, sharpness isn’t an issue at all. Sharpness alone isn’t all that interesting, to be perfectly honest. It’s important, but it’s only ONE element. If you’re making the effort to adapt and shoot with SLR or rangefinder lenses, why not stake the time to research and find superior lenses? I think it’s worthwhile, others wouldn’t.

Different lenses, we’re talking pure analogue designs, have their own unique color signatures and rendering qualities that can make them much more interesting to use than hypothetically “perfect” digital designs.

I have the same Nikon 105mm macro, that’s a wonderful lens and being a macro lens, it’s actually great to use as a telephoto… speaking of sharpness. 😃

I’ve adapted a number of other lenses that are excellent. AND a real pleasure to work with.
 
For a camera system, each has a specific flange distance (the red double head arrow in the diagram below). It is the distance that a lens of the system has to properly project an image on the sensor of the camera.

Extracted from Wiki
Extracted from Wiki

We usually referred the flange distance of various system in terms of the name of the lens mount and so we have the Nikon F-Mount, the Canon EF mount, the Sony FE mount etc for their dslrs which includes not only the type of interlocking of the lens to the body, but also the required flange distance of that system.

Thanks to the removal of the mirror, it allows mirrorless camera to have a shorter flange distance. Therefore, theoretically we can adapt any non native lens onto a mirrorless, by putting in a suitable dummy adapter to extend the flange distance of the mirrorless camera. It is a gift of mirrorless that can use almost any lenses that are originally designed for systems have a longer flange distance.

As per the flange distance of various system here at Wiki you might find that although M43 has a relatively short flange distance of 19.25mm, it might have problem on adapting some other mirrorless' lenses having even shorter flange distance, e.g. Fuji X mount = 17.7mm, Sony E mount = 18mm...

In terms of AF, it is all down to the ability of communication between the camera and the lens. So far there are a few adapters (focal reducer mostly) can set up communication between Canon's EF lenses on M43 bodies. AFAIK there should be no AF adapter for Nikon or Sony lenses yet... As explained by a specialist shop, an AF adapter should be about the ability to map the electronic communicate signals from a lens to the camera through the electronic contact points of the adapter. So some adapter can do the communication well, some less. As the FT lenses of Olympus (a few from Pany) are actually predecessor of M43, it is obviously the easiest to make an adapter (from Oly/Pany or generic).

Last thing worth to mention is the AF extension tube set. Since it is a simple 1 to 1 contact mapping job, so it is easy to produce low cost AF extension tube set through the simple electronic contacts converting any native M43 lenses into macro appliacation...

--
Albert
 
jeffharris said:
Mark9473 said:
greg 123 said:
Keep in mind that when you use an adapter from a larger format you are also sacrificing sharpness, though the speed booster variety minimize the loss of sharpness. A full frame lens is going to suffer quite a bit.
Click to expand...
I don't believe that is generally true. It's not my experience at least. Here's an image from an old full frame lens that is, IMHO, quite sharp. I have plenty of other shots with a variety of lenses that are sharp
Click to expand...
If you’re using better quality lenses, sharpness isn’t an issue at all. Sharpness alone isn’t all that interesting, to be perfectly honest. It’s important, but it’s only ONE element. If you’re making the effort to adapt and shoot with SLR or rangefinder lenses, why not stake the time to research and find superior lenses? I think it’s worthwhile, others wouldn’t.

Different lenses, we’re talking pure analogue designs, have their own unique color signatures and rendering qualities that can make them much more interesting to use than hypothetically “perfect” digital designs.

I have the same Nikon 105mm macro, that’s a wonderful lens and being a macro lens, it’s actually great to use as a telephoto… speaking of sharpness. 😃
Click to expand...
I appreciated the 105 2.8 lens on my D810. I sold it in preference to the smaller and excellent performing Olympus 60mm 2.8. I have M43 for the size, so using my bulky full frame lenses was a non-starter. My priorities are size and weight and getting the most from the camera.
jeffharris said:
I’ve adapted a number of other lenses that are excellent. AND a real pleasure to work with.
Click to expand...
While it might be interesting to utilize old lenses with a vanilla adapter this isn't good advice for someone that doesn't already own one and needs to fill a gap in their lens focal lengths. There are good lightweight M43 primes that will outperform most adapted lenses. They are smaller, lighter with faster autofocus. A significant exception comes into play when more reach is needed and a high quality telephoto gives an important 2x benefit.
 
Last edited:
I have a Kipon EF-MFT-AF adapter which allows AF for Canon lenses on M4/3. I've gotten some good bird shots with a canon 400 f5.6 on an E-M1.
 
Mark9473 said:
Agreed about the HR mode and about the 75/1.8 being one of the sharpest lenses out there. Few native m43 lenses can match it, that's clear enough.
Click to expand...
That was still a nice shot although I cannot read the brand on the outboard motor. Harumph. Harumph. Hey, it's a Nikkor macro lens. Probably would have cost me a week or two of pay 40 years ago, if I could have afforded a Nikon body, Actually, they were too heavy for me, which is why I had the OM1 then and the EM5 now..

Some people will never understand why you and I, and other legacy enthusiasts, enjoy using good old glass. It's not always about matching up to the 75/F1.8, which by the way I also own, and is possibly my best lens.
 
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