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Archive 2008 · Not so Happy Nikon-Eos adapter

StevenPA
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p.2 #1 · p.2 #1 · Not so Happy Nikon-Eos adapter

Pham Minh Son wrote:
Point 6: Different Contax lens require different mount diamter size and thickness to fit tight without loose play. Thus, explain why my adapters are made very tight fit to accomodate the differences in these lens which has not been discussed before.

Point 7: I agree with CyberStudio; the chromated adapters are much more smoother to mount and dismount than the aluminum with anodized to black color.

Son, the knowledge you offer us on FM is always appreciated. Re: Point 6, I now know why you made the C/Y adapters so tight. It seems I don't have a dud in that regard. Re: Point 7, that runs exactly opposite to my experience on every black anodized adapter I've used (Kindai R, F, OM, and C/Y). Kindai are not aluminum though; I believe they are brass.

Edited on Jun 21, 2008 at 07:33 AM

Jun 21, 2008 at 07:33 AM

pdmphoto
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p.2 #2 · p.2 #2 · Not so Happy Nikon-Eos adapter

Kindai 's are brass that have been anodized black. They go on much smoother (and tighter) than any of the other adapters I've used. If you think black doesen't matter go ahead and paint your mirror box silver

quote]StevenPA wrote:
Son, the knowledge you offer us on FM is always appreciated. Re: Point 6, I now know why you made the C/Y adapters so tight. It seems I don't have a dud in that regard. Re: Point 7, that runs exactly opposite to my experience on every black anodized adapter I've used (Kindai R, F, OM, and C/Y). Kindai...Show more →

Jun 21, 2008 at 07:36 AM

jonboring
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p.2 #3 · p.2 #3 · Not so Happy Nikon-Eos adapter

I believe all of Son's CV lenses were calibrated by Zeiss. I know for a fact that several of the key ones he used in the testing were. At one point, Son had what must have been the largest and most impressive collection of Zeiss lenses anywhere. He has forgotten more about the Zeiss lenses than most of us will ever know.

Yes, if the bodies and lenses had zero tolerances, the perfect flange distances would work all the time. However, neither is true. As Son points out, to thick and you lose infinity focus but also gain CA. Experience has shown that the thinner adapters for the wides results in superior performance. However, given the variances, I am sure there are examples of the opposite.

You can start at 1.4 and then use thinner adapters. Or I know of another FMer that starts at 1.4 and hand machines his adapters down, testing at every .05mm for optimal results but he has the tools and know-how to do this.

Net/net, give the variances, you need several adapters of various thickness to crack this nut. I have 5-6 adapters of various thicknesses (1.5mm, two at 1.4, two at 1.3 and 1.2mm) and 5 CV lenses (21, 28/2.8, 28/2, 35-70, 100MP, 135). By trying every adapter on every lens, I was able to find a combination that worked for every lens. The 1.5mm adapter sits in my bag as a spare.

Edited on Jun 21, 2008 at 11:29 AM

Jun 21, 2008 at 11:25 AM

montespluga
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p.2 #4 · p.2 #4 · Not so Happy Nikon-Eos adapter

As there' some Contax-related questions in this thread:

during yesterday's shooting, the distagon 28 MM didn't allow anymore, to close the f-stop- even the f-stop-ring (outside) moves, and the pin inside, towards the mount, moves as well...

So is there a special pin (on the mountside parth of the lens) for adjusting that, or are the f-stop blades resinified? Therefore I had to bring it for repair?

Edited on Jun 22, 2008 at 01:57 PM

Jun 22, 2008 at 01:56 PM

brainiac
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p.2 #5 · p.2 #5 · Not so Happy Nikon-Eos adapter

jonboring wrote:
At one point, Son had what must have been the largest and most impressive collection of Zeiss lenses anywhere. He has forgotten more about the Zeiss lenses than most of us will ever know.

I don't see how that affects the quite surprising theory that Contax lenses were designed and built to match different path-lengths / thicknesses of camera body.

> Yes, if the bodies and lenses had zero tolerances, the perfect flange distances would work all the time.

That assumption seems to me to be the best place to start, i.e. assume the body and lens are calibrated correctly. If it turns out they are not, then get them fixed rather than blaming it on mysterious phenomena.

> However, neither is true. As Son points out, too thick and you lose infinity focus but also gain CA.

Not unless your Contax lens has CRC. The only possible adverse effect of too thick an adaptor on a lens with no CRC/floating elements is the inability to focus infinity. The implication that different Contax lenses are optimised for different mount to film plane registers is fairly bizarre, and no matter how expert Son is, and he is, I still don't believe that part of this theory. My experience of using the Contax RTS system since 1986 is that tolerances were very very good, and that the fastidious Zeiss would not have involved itself with a mount system and lens designed to introduce 0.2mm of error for no good reason. I would like to know what the rationale behind such a strange design would be. Perhaps Son has information about why Zeiss would design lenses for the same system which required different thicknesses of body.

Jun 22, 2008 at 03:04 PM

jonboring
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p.2 #6 · p.2 #6 · Not so Happy Nikon-Eos adapter

Brainiac

It's Richard, right? Neither Son or I said the Zeiss lenses were built with different flange distances. You are reading that into what we wrote - neither of us believe that. As you state, Zeiss had one flange distance. All we are saying is the variances of all 3 elements (body, adapter, lens) mess things up so many times the ideal thickness doesn't work. For some reason, we've found the super wides tend to do better with the thinner adapters.

It doesn't make any difference though, I think we all agree that (a) first get everything calibrated and (b) you may need multiple adapters of different thicknesses to get both infinity focus and no CA. Another option for the lenses without the floating element is to adjust the lens focus mechanisms.

You can adjust the body's AF but that's about it, right? I had been thinking the physical distance of the outer edge of mount to the sensor varied and was the real culprit.

Jun 22, 2008 at 05:37 PM

brainiac
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p.2 #7 · p.2 #7 · Not so Happy Nikon-Eos adapter

Yes - it's Richard!

You can adjust the body's AF but that's about it, right? I had been thinking the physical distance of the outer edge of mount to the sensor varied and was the real culprit.

Can they adjust the sensor position? I know that they rotated either my viewfinder or my sensor when I had the horizon fixed on my 1Ds3. I suspect the sensor fixing would best be designed with a little bolt at each corner so that it can be calibrated/aligned with the mount geometry. Slight variation in the mount to sensor distance is inevitable, and that distance is crucial, so surely they save a fortune in trying to manufacture fine tolerances by just boshing it together and then tuning it on a calibration apparatus. Maybe I'm dreaming.

However, the theory that different CY lenses, properly calibrated by Zeiss, need different thicknesses of adaptor ON THE SAME BODY is bizarre irrespective of how body calibration is achieved. For a given Canon body, if factory spec Zeiss lenses need varying thicknesses of adaptor, depending on how wide are their focal lengths, then yes, you are indeed saying that Zeiss optimised different focal lengths for cameras with different body metrics. It's a very suprising claim, and I would like to know what the basis for it is. Circumstantial evidence on results with a few lenses and bodies isn't enough to show that Zeiss would make such a bizarre design decision.

The only way I can imagine this being true is if some Zeiss lenses have deliberate chromatic aberrations to focus different colours on different layers of film emulsion, and that this affects imaging through AA filters and sensor micro-lenses. Bearing in mind Zeiss's constant championing of high acutance black and white emulsions, and the variable nature of colour emulsions, that also seems a very unlikely explanation.

Of course, these lenses were designed in the days of film, which was usually more forgiving, but my experience of many CY lenses is that they were just designed towards perfect sharpness, which is why they are working so well on my 1Ds3.

I am not questioning your results and Son's, I'm just questioning the generality of the theory that wider CY lenses automatically require thinner mounts than longer ones.

Edited on Jun 23, 2008 at 05:59 AM

Jun 23, 2008 at 05:43 AM

jonboring
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p.2 #8 · p.2 #8 · Not so Happy Nikon-Eos adapter

Richard

Let me restate my position. I am not an expert on the theory behind all this. My experience is, the wides frequently seem to require the thinner adapters. I offered an very uneducated guess as to why this might be the case earlier in this thread (the variance of the body tends more to the long end and/or the wides are more sensitive to the distance variances). However, I in no way believe Zeiss created their lenses with different flange distances in mind. So, whatever is causing this isn't that! Calibrating the lens and sensor location, if your body allows for that, is the best place to start. Also, if the 1.4 thickness doesn't work as it should, you should try both thicker and thinner adapters. I think we are saying almost the same thing.

On another topic, can you post some links to some landscape raw files of your 1DsIII with a really good Zeiss lens? I am still looking for a raw file sample with tree leafs or something similar in the mid-ground or background, see http://www.jonboring.com/-/jonboring/gallery.asp?cat=27671&pID=2&row=15&photoID=2753264&searchTerm=
or http://www.jonboring.com/-/jonboring/gallery.asp?cat=27671&pID=1&row=15&photoID=2148340&searchTerm=

Jun 23, 2008 at 09:26 AM

brainiac
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p.2 #9 · p.2 #9 · Not so Happy Nikon-Eos adapter

> My experience is, the wides frequently seem to require the thinner adapters.

Perhaps you happen to have slightly longer registers on your cameras, and your standard or longer lenses go beyond infinity, which might well be part of the design for thermal reasons. I don't know, but it seems to me that there is one right thickness fore each camera, regardless of which properly calibrated lens is put on it. Maybe the great majority of adaptors are too thick, 1.2mm is the right thickness, and people don't generally notice because most of the lenses focus beyond infinity. Seems implausible though.

>On another topic, can you post some links to some landscape raw files of your 1DsIII with a really good Zeiss lens?

I don't really shoot landscape, so there's not much I can give you. There's this though:
http://cyberphotographer.com/1ds3/ramazan/ramazan_lowrez.jpg
http://cyberphotographer.com/1ds3/ramazan/ramazan_crop_sharp.jpg
That's the Zeiss 500 f8 on a cheap Chinese adaptor, from a moving boat, hand held at 1/1000th, with a bit of a guess at focus since it was too bright to use liveview. Here's the raw file:
http://cyberphotographer.com/1ds3/ramazan/ramazan.CR2

Loved your black and white landscapes and buildings.

Edited on Jun 23, 2008 at 03:41 PM

Jun 23, 2008 at 03:40 PM

Canonizer
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p.2 #10 · p.2 #10 · Not so Happy Nikon-Eos adapter

My Haoda Nikon-EOS adapter focused past infinity on six out of six different Nikkors. Not impressed, needless to say.

Jun 23, 2008 at 03:46 PM

cyberstudio
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p.2 #11 · p.2 #11 · Not so Happy Nikon-Eos adapter

Smoothness of mounting/dismounting depends on flatness and roughness of the mounting surface more than the plating.

You can apply proper plating on an uneven or rough surface and get very rough-feeling mounting. That is the case for low-quality, inexpensive mounts. They may still tell you they manufacture to the tightest tolerance - but they do that only to dimensional tolerance with disregard to flatness/parallelism and roughness/surface finish. If they aim for the low end at low cost, they wouldn't be able to take time to get all of these parameters right, even if we make the dubious assumption that they knew what they were doing.

On a flat, finely finished surface, chrome has a significant lower coefficient of friction than black anodization.

Jun 24, 2008 at 12:40 PM

wayne seltzer
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p.2 #12 · p.2 #12 · Not so Happy Nikon-Eos adapter

Thanks everyone for all this great adapter info and Ward for the link to the PebblePlace adapter fitting guide.
I used a small screwdriver to pry apart the plates in the adapter which press against the tabs in the camera lens mount. This reduced alot of the play I was seeing between the lens and the camera.
There is still a bit of rotational play between the adapter and the camera which I don't have with my other two adapters (Mark's Nikon G-EOS, Fotodiox non-pro) which fit very snug.

I have found one precise position at which if I insert my new Zeiss 35 ZF lens with HappyPage adapter at an angle with the bottom edge going in first, that I can actually get it to mount flush with the 1ds3 camera. My other two adapters don't have this problem.

I will try comparing the infinity focusing of this lens with this adapter and my others tonight.

Last night it looked like the HappyPage adapter was focusing short of infinity.
Is there any drawbacks with a lens and adapter focusing short of infinity, like more CA or shorter DOF? To fix this I would assume that I would have to add metal tape to the adapter to thicken the adapter, right?

Jun 24, 2008 at 07:35 PM

AhamB
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p.2 #13 · p.2 #13 · Not so Happy Nikon-Eos adapter

wayne seltzer wrote:
Last night it looked like the HappyPage adapter was focusing short of infinity.
Is there any drawbacks with a lens and adapter focusing short of infinity, like more CA or shorter DOF? To fix this I would assume that I would have to add metal tape to the adapter to thicken the adapter, right?

No, if the lens does not reach infinity, it means your adapter is too thick and is functioning as an extension tube. Shimming only helps if the adapter is too thin and when the lens focuses beyond infinity (which happens with my cheap NF-EOS adapter).

My current adapter is made of chrome plated brass and has a very tight fit, so I guess shimming is out of the question (I don't like the idea of messing with tape anyway). I don't understand why it doesn't have some ridges on the side, because when attaching it to/removing it from the lens (Nikkor 20mm f/4) it cuts in my fingers (not literally).

Thinking about getting an (unbranded) Fotodiox Pro adapter now for $56. It looks much more user friendly. Or otherwise one from DVDTechnik ($35).

By the way, chipping your adapters is easy. Just get some AF-confirm chips from ebay and get some normal and epoxy glue. The procedure is very simple with most adapters.

Edited on Jul 11, 2008 at 10:21 AM

Jul 11, 2008 at 05:20 AM

europanorama
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p.2 #14 · p.2 #14 · Not so Happy Nikon-Eos adapter

jonboring wrote:
HappypageHK will chip your adapter, he's done all of mine. Also, he will replace the adapter if you just contact him. On eBay, with those prices, you have to expect QC to be low. Rudolf however is great to do business with and will make sure you get an adapter that works.
who is rudolf?

Apr 28, 2009 at 06:33 AM

europanorama
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p.2 #15 · p.2 #15 · Not so Happy Nikon-Eos adapter

cyberstudio wrote:
Smoothness of mounting/dismounting depends on flatness and roughness of the mounting surface more than the plating.

You can apply proper plating on an uneven or rough surface and get very rough-feeling mounting. That is the case for low-quality, inexpensive mounts. They may still tell you they manufacture to the tightest tolerance - but they do that only to dimensional tolerance with disregard to flatness/parallelism and roughness/surface finish. If they aim for the low end at low cost, they wouldn't be able to take time to get all of these parameters right, even if we make the dubious assumption that they knew...Show more →
lower coefficient means lover friction? what does this mean?

Apr 28, 2009 at 07:18 AM

brainiac
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p.2 #16 · p.2 #16 · Not so Happy Nikon-Eos adapter

lower coefficient means lover friction? what does this mean?

The coefficient of friction (µ) is the ratio between the contact force normal to the surface between two objects and the force parallel to the surface that one object exerts on the other. In tyres you want µ to be as large as possible. In lens bayonets you want a low µ to reduce wear. Lubricants reduce µ, grip tape increases it.

Apr 28, 2009 at 07:32 AM

montespluga
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p.2 #17 · p.2 #17 · Not so Happy Nikon-Eos adapter

europanorama wrote:
who is rudolf?

Rudolf is HappypageHK

Apr 28, 2009 at 12:30 PM

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