Fuji officially announces M Adapter...

[rbelyell]

personally, and no disrespect, i think its 'unrealistic' to criticize something before it even reaches the market. fact is we do not know what this does or doesnt do, so how can anyone be disappointed? further, if we are indeed to have disappointment that is 'reasonable', that must be based on something specific, not a nebulous 'failure to reach its potential'. i dont know what the heck that means.

the xpro is a fuji, not a leica. it is not a rangefinder. it is not hardware-optimized for RF lenses. while an adapter coupled with a software update may significantly improve user experience and perhaps even IQ, it cannot change those basic facts. expectations to the contrary are baseless. we need to get over it already.
tony

 

[Lss]

personally, and no disrespect, i think its 'unrealistic' to criticize something before it even reaches the market.

Okay, disagreed.

 

[rxmd]

The issue is that many were however hoping for a way to utilize M glass up to their full focusing potential. Whether a realistic expectation or not, they were. This adapter does not deliver in that respect. I guess I was feeling a little disappointed for all those people.

No disrepect, but would you also feel disappointed for those other people who expected it to add autofocus to M lenses? Or, for that matter, to cook coffee for them?

It may sound harsh, but if other people's expectations are unrealistic this is basically their problem. I don't think there's much point in assuming their presumed disappointment for oneself.

Then again, what kind of "utilizing the focusing potential" would those people have expected? Rangefinder focusing would be impossible without a second viewfinder window anyway, so as discussed earlier all you'd get is a little virtual moving arrow on a virtual distance scale, a.k.a. zone focusing on steroids. A rangefinder arm wouldn't even fit in there - given the adapter thickness of 10.1mm, this would have to include all the mechanics including the roller and the Leica M bayonet. From a technical point of view all this is pretty obvious as soon as you advance from "what would be nice to have" to actual technical considerations.

 

[Lss]

No disrepect, but would you also feel disappointed for those other people who expected it to add autofocus to M lenses? Or, for that matter, to cook coffee for them?

Right, no disrespect at all there. 🙄

 

[willie_901]

What is the purpose of the electrical contacts on Fuji's adapter?

 

[Lss]

What is the purpose of the electrical contacts on Fuji's adapter?

Based on the announcement (copied in the opening message), they are only for communicating the lens profiles, i.e. which lens is used.

 

[rxmd]

Based on the announcement (copied in the opening message), they are only for communicating the lens profiles, i.e. which lens is used.

And probably the simple fact that the adapter is present, so that you can leave the "shoot without a lens" option switched off.

I wonder how long it will take for other makers to reverse engineer the protocol on those contacts, it can't be that difficult given how little it actually does.

 

[rxmd]

Right, no disrespect at all there. 🙄

There really wasn't (I'm sorry if you took it that way) - I was genuinely interested why one should feel disappointed for other people if one know that their expectations were unrealistic in the first place, and a few particularly absurd examples would illustrate the point better.

 

[f16sunshine]

I bought a Photodiox Adapter from Precision camera. It's difficult to imaging the official Fuji being a better tool for adapting lenses considering the modest features that adapter will bring. It's not really just a price issue but, one of principle. Why pay Fuji a $150 premium for an adapter that tells the camera what you already know when you mount the lens. Is in camera control of distortion and vignetting recovery better than doing it in PP on a full size computer screen with LR/PS/A3 ..etc ? Those adjustments are done in camera and do not require the adapters contacts anyway. As others have said, I expected more innovation. Focus peaking at the very least seems a simple thing to do. Although again that would be an in camera function and nothing to do with the adapter.

What it seems to boil down to is with the Fuji adapter you pay a $150 premium to select frame lines outside of the camera menu ?? Is that it?

 

[rxmd]

Speculating that the electrical contacts (as ambiguously mentioned in-passing by Fuji) would somehow convey distance information, you'd need an "arm connection" in the adapter.

Yeah, but it was pretty clear from the beginning that the adapter would be "mostly armless".

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

personally, and no disrespect, i think its 'unrealistic' to criticize something before it even reaches the market.

Hey, criticizing something before it reaches the market is an after-effect of criticizing the performance of something that's never been used!

 

[f16sunshine]

Hey, criticizing something before it reaches the market is an after-effect of criticizing the performance of something that's never been used!

Well I hope I don't sound like that although I have not used the fuji adapter.
I'll tell you what. Using the M lenses on the Xpro1 is sure a pleasure.
So far I've tried the Hex limited 50mm f1.2, Canon f1.5/85 and Zeiss Contax 40-80mm zoom.
All make beautiful images. For Portrait and short to id tele users I sure hope that fuji brings a 2 stage zoom option to the vF magnification.
The current 10x option is nice but too much for 50mm+ lenses when used handheld. On the tripod it's fine.

 

[Lss]

There really wasn't (I'm sorry if you took it that way)

Okay, no hard feelings.

I was genuinely interested why one should feel disappointed for other people if one know that their expectations were unrealistic in the first place, and a few particularly absurd examples would illustrate the point better.

The thing is, I don't think all those expectations are unrealistic in the technical sense. Unrealistic for what we should expect Fuji to offer for a line of competitive products, yes. But I cannot really go into much technical detail without an NDA. 😀

 

[semilog]

What it seems to boil down to is with the Fuji adapter you pay a $150 premium to select frame lines outside of the camera menu ?? Is that it?

...and imprint EXIF data, and automatically do jpeg corrections -- these are very handy things for many people. In addition, centering, flange-to-sensor distance, flange-to-flange parallelism, and mount quality are likely to be held to tighter tolerances than on the aftermarket adapters.

The Kipon XF-to-M adaptor that I got was garbage, with horribly loose machining tolerances. Garbage.

If you look at the prices of premium adapters such as those made by Novoflex, you will not be surprised by the price that Fuji is charging.

 

[semilog]

Yeah, but it was pretty clear from the beginning that the adapter would be "mostly armless".

What was the question, again?

😉

 

[Dante_Stella]

You don't actually need the CPU to burn focal length into the metadata even right now; if you tell the camera what lens you are using, it will do it (I was surprised to find a bunch of "21mm" shots in the Lightroom metadata. The beauty of the Fuji adapter is not plowing through so many menus to get there.

Dante

 

[GaryLH]

...and imprint EXIF data, and automatically do jpeg corrections -- these are very handy things for many people. In addition, centering, flange-to-sensor distance, flange-to-flange parallelism, and mount quality are likely to be held to tighter tolerances than on the aftermarket adapters.

The Kipon XF-to-M adaptor that I got was garbage, with horribly loose machining tolerances. Garbage.

If you look at the prices of premium adapters such as those made by Novoflex, you will not be surprised by the price that Fuji is charging.

+1.

Most of the cheaper adapter makers are going to be hit and miss. The better the manufacturing tolerances and qa, the higher the price is going to be.

If I remember correctly the Voightlander adapters for m43 are in the 150 range. The x mount adapters that Camera Quest sell is over 100 as well..

Fuji is not out of line when u look at other high end makers.

Gary

 

[GaryLH]

I bought a Photodiox Adapter from Precision camera. It's difficult to imaging the official Fuji being a better tool for adapting lenses considering the modest features that adapter will bring. It's not really just a price issue but, one of principle. Why pay Fuji a $150 premium for an adapter that tells the camera what you already know when you mount the lens. Is in camera control of distortion and vignetting recovery better than doing it in PP on a full size computer screen with LR/PS/A3 ..etc ? Those adjustments are done in camera and do not require the adapters contacts anyway. As others have said, I expected more innovation. Focus peaking at the very least seems a simple thing to do. Although again that would be an in camera function and nothing to do with the adapter.

What it seems to boil down to is with the Fuji adapter you pay a $150 premium to select frame lines outside of the camera menu ?? Is that it?

Partially agree with u. An example I bought a Rainbow adapter for m to x mount, I got lucky, infinity focus was right on... I have a Rainbow for an Sony NEX, m to Nex, that one infinity focus was way off.

in terms of the value of the contacts on the adapter, Dante says it best later on in todays posts. But until we get the firmware update and c the new adapter and c the combined effect, the jury is still out 😀

Gary

 

[GaryLH]

All make beautiful images. For Portrait and short to id tele users I sure hope that fuji brings a 2 stage zoom option to the vF magnification.
The current 10x option is nice but too much for 50mm+ lenses when used handheld. On the tripod it's fine.

+1

Yep.. 50mm lenses are just ok. Try holding a 90mm or 135 and u may get dizzy for all the shake and motion blur. A lower magnication option based on the focal length would be a nice firmware update.

I also use jsrock's advice of manual metering and let auto iso select the right ISO for best exposure to ensure I have the right shutter speed for the lens.

Gary

 

[froyd]

So, nobody here has tried the adapter yet? Curious to hear the results.