Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Cameras, Lenses and Shooting gear => Topic started by: NancyP on September 26, 2013, 03:57:49 pm
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I want to use an old Nikon AI-S 50mm f/1.2 manual focus manual aperture ring lens on my Canon 6D, and I don't care about having a dandelion chip. There seems to be a large variety of adapters available. Any comment on which ones fit well and provide infinity focus? Yes, I am sure that Novoflex makes a quality adapter, but at almost 300 bucks, the adapter is as expensive as the lens. Other brands sold by B and H are: inexpensive Fotodiox ($28.00), Fotodiox "pro" ($80.00), Bower ($40.00), Cinevate ($40.00). No doubt there are a few other eBay-only items.
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Canons register distance is shorter than nikons which allows a purely mechanical adapter to be used and still retail infinity focus without any additional optics.
Though I dont have any experience with any of these adapters.
Manually focusing at 1.2 will be impossible without a change of focus screen which isnt supported by canon in the 6d.
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Relevant :
http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2013/09/there-is-no-free-lunch-episode-763-lens-adapters
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I have a photodiox pro that works well. tight fit.
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Thanks, everyone. I hadn't seen Roger's latest article. FYI, the Canon 6D DOES accept alternative focusing screens such as the Eg-S matte screen for high speed lenses. The more expensive Canon 5D3 does NOT take alternative screens. The Fotodiox Pro seems to have an extra leaf spring that the low price adapters do not have, I was thinking that it might be a better fit. Canon flange to sensor distance is 44.0mm, Nikon and M42 universal mount are ~46 mm. My M42 lenses mount perfectly on my Canon, but then the adapter is very simple.
I "blame" Michael Reichman for getting me into this - "Nikon's Hidden Jewel" article on this site ..... I can hardly wait for the lens to arrive. ;) Yes, it would have been simpler and cheaper to buy the Canon Plastic Fantastic 50mm f/1.8 II. I loves me some bokeh, though...
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+1 for Fotodiox. Before investing in them you could dry the cheap ones first. Some of them are machined well and gives you infinity focus.
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I've always used Fotodiox Pro units - Nikon to Canon (when shot Canon) and now Mamiya 645 to Nikon. No issues.
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Report card:
Fotodiox PRO (the $70.00 model with spring clips) fits like a dream.
Bower ($40.00, but fortunately I bought it used for half price) moves slightly. OK on tripod, I took my lens out on an astronomy outing, but annoying as H.
Thanks, all.
The used Nikon 50mm f/1.2 is a qualified success - excellent images, but the focus feels as if the lubricant has been thinned or removed, and there is an irregularity close to infinity - it feels like a focus-by-wire lens, not the silky feel of a decent manual focus lens. However, I got what I paid for - usable lens, not "mint".
The other Nikon item, PB4 swing-shift macro bellows, is an unqualified success. I have a few old enlarger lenses to start with.
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I have a Stephen Gandy Nikon F mount lens to Canon EOS body adapter. It is a beauty.
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THanks. The Rayquals he carries are said to be the best, made in Japan by a skilled machine shop specializing in camera mounts. I was pleasantly surprised by the Fotodiox Pro, though. One thing that I stumble over is the clockwise vs counterclockwise mounting of Canon and Nikon - habit is to do it the Canon way, before ...oh yeah... the Nikon way. I have had decent luck with the cheap eBay M42 to EOS adapters, but those are mechanically very simple. Some of the old lenses have pleasing rendering, though the modern lenses beat them in resolution, by and large. The old fast normal lenses have spectacular coma in full frame corners, only controllable at f/4. Interestingly, I have two essentially identical 55mm f/1.4 lenses of similar vintage and apparently identical element design, Mamiya Sekor and Chinon, and the Chinon is significantly better for coma - probably the coatings are different, or batch of glass was different, even though it is often claimed that both are Tomioka made.
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I just leave it on the lens I bought it for, a 105mm f/4 AI-S Micro-Nikkor. That way it mounts like all other Canon EF lenses.
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I have equipped my old M42 lenses with the mechanically simple and very cheap (under 10 bucks apiece) M42 to EOS adapters, which fit perfectly. As far as full frame astrophotography coma is concerned, the Nikon beats the pants off the (single-coated?) 55mm f/1.4 Mamiya-Sekor and the (multi-coated) Chinon 55mm f/1.4 of the same design but later vintage, supposedly made by Tomioka, and is better than the 60mm f/2.8 1:1 macro Mamiya-Sekor. I doubt I will be swapping the 50 1.2 and the bellows in the field, so one $70.00 F to EOS should be sufficient.