Mini review of the MC-21

I recently bought a MC-21 at a good price (Sigma had them on sale for $119) and then borrowed a Panasonic S5 to try it out on.

I tested five lenses: 17-50 EX f2.8 OS, 24-35 f2 A, 50 F1.4A, 70 f2.8 A and the original 105 EX f2.8 macro.

I could access the aperture on all lenses but AF would not work on the older EX lenses. AF does work on the A lenses but it is very slow and so isn't useful for anything moving.

In MF mode the automatic 10x mag mode (turn the focus ring and the image automatically enlarges 10x to help with focusing accuracy) worked on the A lenses but not on the EX lenses making them difficult to focus accurately, so if you're wanting to adapt any EX lenses to the L mount they may not work very well.

Other observations:

On testing the high resolution mode on the S5, there's no actual increase in resolution. All the program does is to artificially make the file larger via some uprezzing formula to present the illusion of increased resolution. It does though eliminate moire patterns, so that's something.

I was curious how well the S5 with the A lenses handled night shots so I tested the 24-35 f2 and the 50 f1.4 at ISO 3200. Both had to be stopped down to f2.8 in order to minimize coma, but the noise level on the S5 at ISO 3200 was actually quite good.

24-35 at 24mm f2.8 10 seconds ISO 3200 on S5

24-35 at 35mm f2.8 10 sec ISO 3200

50mm f1.4 A at f2.8