It seems the day has come when I have something to say about adapters and converters for the micro 4/3 system.
Are you the owner of the micro 4/3 system? Congratulations! After all, today in our article I will tell you about several adapters and lens adapters for this system, which you will probably dream about. However, the list includes only those whose cost (at least on Ebay) does not exceed $100, so you can not only dream about them, but also completely afford them. Let’s start our list with the most expensive and (I’m not afraid of this word) pointless adapter. But without it, the list would not be complete. We are talking about an adapter for connecting lenses from Nikon cameras with a Nikon F mount to the Micro 4/3 system – Viltrox NF-M1.
Viltrox NF-M1
It’s not for nothing that the list started with it, because it was my dream. Even more so! I was ready to pay about $120-150 for it “right now”. I really wanted to touch the beauty, because I had several lenses for the Nikon system and, accordingly, I was “itching” to try it with my own eyes. But something went wrong.
On the good side – on most native Nikon lenses, especially modern ones with new quiet motors, the adapter should work and produce normal autofocus and lens performance in general. The 18-55 and 55-200 kit lenses showed that the adapter can work with such lenses. Why was it on this list at all? Because the Nikon autofocus adapter for the “micro” system is one of the things you came to this article for in the first place 🙂
By the way, the adapter has a disgusting place protruding from the bottom, probably under the electronics, which makes it similar to the original Nikon F-Nikon Z adapter.
Speed booster Viltrox NF-M43X 0.71x
Never before has a manual lens adapter been more interesting than an autofocus one. And then the Viltrox NF-M43X 0.71x speed booster came along. What kind of beast is this? In short, when using optics from full-frame cameras on crop cameras, these optics slightly change their aperture and focal length. Yes, if my memory serves me right, for a “micro” the crop factor is two, so on some Olympus boxes there was a designation for the micro 4/3 system and for the full-frame system in terms of the crop factor. It looked like this:
So, the speed booster is designed to level this difference, and, among other things, increase the aperture of the lens relative to the declared one. That is, an abstract 50/1.8 from a full-frame camera will have a focal length of 35.5 mm (50*0.71) and an aperture of 1.278. The numbers are very conditional, so in simple terms – a lens from a camera with a large sensor size will have a more “honest” focal length and aperture than when using a regular adapter (not a speed booster). Again, due to the use of lenses in the speed booster, there may be some distortion. I myself did not notice it.
A nice feature of this speed booster is the ability to select the aperture value by turning a special ring. What is interesting is that if on the camera for which the Nikon lens is intended, we do not see such a clear difference between the open and closed aperture in terms of depth of field, then with this adapter it is very clearly visible. In my opinion, with such an adapter for macro photography, the so-called focus-stacking, designed to display a picture with maximum depth of field, will not even be needed. It is more than enough here even without it.
This control over the depth of field will allow you to easily shoot shots that you have repeatedly seen on the Internet, when a bee or butterfly on a flower is in the full-size focus zone. Previously, it was unclear to me how professional photographers achieve this result, but for myself I found a very good option for using a camera on the micro 4/3 system + speed booster + full-frame macro lens like the same Tamron 90/2.8.
Despite the fact that only manual mode is available (by the way, goodbye optics like the Nikon AF-P DX NIKKOR 70-300mm f/4.5-6.3G ED VR, which, as it turned out, has a fully electronic focusing drive, due to which without power supply (the lens is not able to focus), focusing with this adapter is quite pleasant. There is a tripod mount on the bottom, which can be used if you plan to put heavy optics on the camera. Unlike its “older brother”, it unscrews here and allows you to get a design of minimal size.
And here’s what’s interesting – despite the fact that the speed booster adapter implies the presence of additional lenses between the camera sensor and the optics, another adapter, which will be discussed further, was installed on this adapter without any problems.
Tamron Adaptall-2 Mount for Nikon AI
That’s what our next guest tonight is called. Why is he and what is the purpose of an adapter that “neither sleeps nor spirits” does not belong directly to the “micro”? The fact is that quite recently I discovered information that Tamron once had an interesting line of optics. It was interesting because the lenses could be used on different cameras without any design differences. That is, there was a base lens, and a special adapter was installed on the camera side that corresponded to the system. If you had cameras from Canon and Nikon, you only needed to have a cheap 20$ adapter for each of the systems to use the same optics. As far as I remember, there are Chinese adapters that allow you to directly attach Adaptall system lenses to the “micro”, but I preferred to use two branded adapters. In the case of the Nikon Adaptall adapter + speed booster, a more than interesting combination is obtained.
So, many lenses from this system cost a lot of money (my 28/2.5 can be bought for around $25-30, including an adapter, if we talk about Ebay), have a high-quality construction (metal + glass is not this modern plastic everywhere and everything), and reliability, which is much higher than that of similar lenses. In my opinion, if you take a similar manual Nikon or Pentax lens, it will be too stiff, or worse in image quality, or will cost more. If you, like us, have several different systems, this can be a good help in order to have one optics for both of them. In addition, there is an interesting lens for this system, which I will devote a separate article to. This is a lens with a focal length of 500 mm and an interesting design. The picture quality for its price (about $100) is beyond praise.
Meike MK-P-AF3A autofocus macro rings
Let’s dilute our article with autofocus macro rings. At a cost of about $30-40, they allow you to become a macro photographer with literally any lens. Especially those who are previously inclined to macro subjects. For example, there is a lens from the Canon system, on which the word Macro is primarily due to the minimum minimum focusing distance (about 25 cm). I’m too lazy to look for calculations and recalculate some focal length, the focusing distance and other parameters will be in the lens after using an adapter for the Canon system lens and these macro rings, but the result of their use was such that I could completely abandon the idea of taking a separate macro lens, if this direction in photography interested me so much.
The obvious disadvantage of using such rings is the loss of shooting at “infinity”. That is, despite the presence of autofocus, you need to be prepared that the lens with these rings will have a certain segment on which focusing is possible. So, to take a picture of an object a meter away from you, you will have to remove them. On the one hand, this is inconvenient, on the other…when going somewhere on the road, it is much easier to take a pair of macro rings than to take a separate lens.
Speed booster Viltrox EF-M2 II
In order not to end on a sad note, I would like to recall a brief experience with the speed booster adapter for Canon EF lenses. Actually, unlike Nikon, there is an autofocus speed booster for the Canon system. With the only limitation that only full-frame lenses from the aforementioned system can be mounted on it. At the time when I had this adapter, unfortunately, I did not have a lens for a full-fledged test. Like the autofocus non-speed booster for Nikon, this speed booster for Canon did not evoke warm feelings in me due to the lack of versatility. I like it when they tell me “you can use any lens of the system with our adapter” without any of these “buts”. If I were told to choose “only one” adapter adapter from the “adult system”, then it would be…
Viltrox EF-M1 adapter for EF, EF-S lens to Micro 4/3 mount
This is the title you will find it under in the store. And it is he who won me over the most. A regular autofocus adapter for full-frame and point-and-shoot lenses of the Canon system. With the Canon Zoom Lens EF-S 18-55mm 1:3.5-5.6 IS STM lens I have, I found myself in a situation where I simply do not understand what and why I need my native 14-42 for “micro”. To hell with it, with a wide angle that a whale 12-32 can give, but judging by the picture, the ability to shoot some macro, versatility and autofocus work, it would seem that the simplest lens costing $25-45 was able to give me what I needed. No less joy was for me to use the “macro” Tamron 90/2.8 on it. And although the autofocus was there, ahem… not particularly nimble, but overall the result was more than good.
This adapter allowed me to look at the Canon system from a different angle. In particular, at its optics. If we are talking about the cheapest system in terms of high-quality optics, then it is very likely that a “micro” with a range of lenses costing up to $130, which will allow you to show yourself in a variety of directions, will be considered such. At the same time, mirrorless optics on a small sensor can also perform quite well, taking into account the fact that the camera uses the “best” (central) part of the optics, so even whale lenses can give a more pleasant result than on cameras of their system.
There are a number of interesting lenses for the Olympus/Panasonic system at an interesting price. At the same time, with this adapter you can find some lenses from the Canon system, which will be no less interesting to you. I really “got into” that KIT’s 18-55, that Tamron 90/2.8. I would really like to try another 55-250, which is very praised on the network and which, quite possibly, will replace for me the Nikon 55-200, which many also love for the image quality.
K&F Concept PK-M4/3 adapter for mounting Pentax K lenses to Micro 4/3 system
At one time, I had a not-so-funny case when the bayonet mount eyelet of an adapter from China broke. Because of this, there was a problem in removing the lens from the adapter. As a result, I decided to look for a better quality adapter, and for me, the K&F Concept PK-M4/3 became such. A similar analogue can be called the Fotga Pentax PK To Micro 4/3, but mine turned out to be cheaper due to the purchase from eBay. The adapter has nothing special, so I will not dwell on it. Among the interesting adapters for Pentax lenses is the autofocus (including a screwdriver on the side of the Pentax lens) adapter to the Sony system, but that’s a little different.
About stabilization
With the stabilization built into the lens, the picture is quite bad. On the one hand, with these adapters it works, but it works about the same as when using stabilization when the camera is on a tripod. All it does is shake the picture, and, as a result, there is no point in such stabilization. At the same time, I managed to evaluate the stabilization of my Panasonic G90, which showed itself perfectly both with “shorter” lenses and with a 500 mm Tamron. Therefore, if your camera is of the level of the Panasonic G90 or Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mk2, the level of stabilization of the camera in tandem with an unstabilized lens will be close to what the stabilizer built into the lens gives on the native system (Canon’s on a Canon camera, Nikon’s on a Nikon camera) At least for me there was no obvious difference.
I think the problem arises because the lenses are designed for a different sensor size, so the electronics built into the lens (namely, the operation of the stabilization built into the lens depends on it) is not able to understand what is wanted from it. I do not consider this a problem, because both Panasonic and Olympus have a system with dual stabilization (lens + camera), but on neither of the two systems it works with each other’s optics. Therefore, it is not surprising that single or dual stabilization does not work with lenses of a completely different system.
About the operation of manual optics
What I love or, rather, adore the “micro” for is working with manual optics. We set the aperture to the required value, set any necessary mode (including creative). We focus and take a picture. In any other system when working with manual optics, I encountered one or another wanderings, here there is complete freedom for creativity, which attracts me very much. It was on the “micro” that I stopped being afraid of manual lenses, and even when shooting macro I now always use manual focusing, which works faster than in automatic mode.
Summary
The article turned out to be quite “fat” despite the lack of examples of shots from each of the adapters. We will consider it introductory, and in the future I will try to write a review of each or most of the above adapters. In general, I plan to share more of my opinion on the topic of using one or another optics that came into my hands. Although most of the lenses are perceived by me the same, there are special lenses. I will write about them as I find them. I will leave it at that and wait for questions in the comments 🙂
Author: Sa Crea
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