I was wondering how people's experience has been with this. I just picked up a Fuji Xt-3 and have some M glass I wanted to try on it. I looked on the internet and there is very little information seemingly. I also ordered the novoflex adapter at a good price so I am hoping this is at least a reasonable way to breathe new life into my M glass. I had a Leica M10, but sold it as it was too expensive for my amount of use, but I am hoping this is at least a fun way to use the glass when it's not on a film body. Not expecting miracles. Thanks!
Actually there is plenty out there in discussion forums, it's been discussed at length since evf cameras were 'invented'.
Basically, with Fuji almost everything from 50mm upwards works fine, less than 50mm then it gets complicated. It depends on the lens design, but MOST lenses do not work well because lens designs with short back focus and oblique ray angles interact badly with the sensor design of all except the Leica cameras. Best not to rely on them working but try the ones you have, and dispose of those that don't come up to your standards.
I did use the Summicron M 2/35 briefly with a basic Chinese adapter. Works just fine. I didn't see any benefits compared to the XF 35/1.4 I had. So if you really love manual focusing and the solid feel of operating a Leica lens buying an adapter is a no brainer. The 1.5x crop factor means lenses are different than on film ..but you don't have to worry too much about blurry corners (as with Sony a7).
hauxon wrote:
I did use the Summicron M 2/35 briefly with a basic Chinese adapter. Works just fine. I didn't see any benefits compared to the XF 35/1.4 I had. So if you really love manual focusing and the solid feel of operating a Leica lens buying an adapter is a no brainer. The 1.5x crop factor means lenses are different than on film ..but you don't have to worry too much about blurry corners (as with Sony a7).
It depends which version of the 35mm Summicron you try, I have both the original one in M3 mount and the Aspheric.
On film as you would expect the newer one is sharper at large apertures at the edges, but on digital, even on the Fuji it's the other way round. In both cases the Fuji 35 f/2 is sharper at the edges all the way from f/2 to at least 5.6.
The Fuji lenses are so good, the only thing I miss is the lovely feel of the manual focus mount and the depth of field scales so that I can use scale focussing and even that can be done with the viewfinder scales.
The Leica mount lenses I do use are from 50 upwards, particularly the 50mm Summicron, 75mm Voigtlander Heliar and 90mm Elmarit, and also in short lenses the Voigtlander 28mm f/1.9 does well as its more of a retrofocus design.
I use my Leica 90mm Summicron with very nice results. It has that lovely bokeh.
Unfortunately, my 50mm Summicron is a dual range. It will not work at normal distances because the closeup range lens flange protrudes too far in the body. I won't work on digital M bodies either.
I also have a vintage Nikkor 35mm f3.5 screw mount with a M mount adapter. I'm thinking this lens is from the mid 1950s. Here's a photo taken with it mounted on an X-Pro2.
I appreciate everyone's input. I understand that the adapted lenses are going to have issues vs the native ones. I was just wondering what people's opinions were who have adapted lenses on their Fuji cameras. I was looking at the lenses as more a fun option to mess around with and get a different character occasionally so it sounds like this will more than do the trick. Like most things, the lenses work best on the bodies they were designed for. Also seems like due to the crop factor I get a little more focal ranges by having them available to me so that is a somewhat perceived benefit.
I use the latest Summilux 50mm with great results on X-T2. The benefit of Fuji is the very quick back dial press to magnify the view, along with focus peaking, makes for accurate focus.
calilocal20 wrote:
I was wondering how people's experience has been with this. I just picked up a Fuji Xt-3 and have some M glass I wanted to try on it. I looked on the internet and there is very little information seemingly. I also ordered the novoflex adapter at a good price so I am hoping this is at least a reasonable way to breathe new life into my M glass. I had a Leica M10, but sold it as it was too expensive for my amount of use, but I am hoping this is at least a fun way to use the glass when it's not on a film body. Not expecting miracles. Thanks!...Show more →
Since you have them lying around, its okay I guess to mess around with those lenses, and they do look nice on a Fuji body but native lenses will have better IQ. If you really want nearly comparable result to the M10, your best bet is getting a second hand Sony A7 (dirt cheap) and have it modified by Kolari vision.
