Leica M to Nikon F adapters

[MNS]

Greetings, hope we all had a great Christmas.

I know this is blasphemy for some members but I have been looking around at Leica M mount to Nikon F lens adapters and wondered if anyone has opinions on the best brand or any pitfalls you may have come across using these adapters.

I mainly want to use the telephoto lenses. I'm quite happy to use a straight adapter, knowing full well this means stop down metering, no coupling and I would have to use live view for focusing.

I have a few Nikkor AI lenses 20, 28, 35, 50, 85, 135 and a 200mm.

I'd interested to hear your thoughts.

 

[Timmyjoe]

Happy Holidays to you.

I have almost the exact same bevy of Nikon F mount lenses, and for me, a Leica M camera is the last place I would try and use them. IMHO the biggest advantage of a Leica M is the rangefinder focusing system, something completely negated by trying to mount Nikon F lenses to a Leica M body.

But don't despair, there are many great digital and film bodies that will happily take your Nikon F mount lenses. I use mine on an older Nikon Df, and currently on a Nikon Zf when I want to shoot digital (the Sony A series cameras are also a great choice). For film, I've used my Nikon F mount lenses on every Nikon "pro" film body, F, F2, F3, F4s, F5 and currently F6, and use a Nikon FM2N as a back up.

I've never tried to mate my Nikon F lenses to my Leica M, because it didn't offer me anything I couldn't get another way.

Best,
-Tim

 

[peterm1]

I assume you are asking about using Nikon F lenses on mirrorless. I do this all the time and as I am presently mostly using an L mount camera I do it by stacking adapters - say for example a Nikon F mount to Leica M mount adapter mated also with a Leica M mount to (in the above case) L mount adapter (or previously Leica M to Sony / fujifilm / m4/3 mount adapter when I was shooting one of these cameras)

I found this satisfactory as I often shoot with different lens systems and by adding a Leica M to Fuji mount adapter this makes for a flexible and relatively cheap way to adapt various lens types to different camera types. As to adapter brands. I often use K&F concept adapters as I think the quality is pretty good and the prices reasonable. But truth be told I tend to find the "no name" brand Leica M adapters pretty good too at the moment as they are inherently simple devices that do not require the kind of precision of something that has mechanical rangefinder linkage. All they have to do is to mount the lens securely to the adapter and mount the adapter securely to the camera. The other tolerances I have seen in these adapters (e.g. ensuring they are planar with the sensor plane) have been sufficient for the purpose.

The only slight quibble I notice occasionally with some adapters is that they all have some kind of locking pin to hold the lens in place and sometimes these pins are a tiny bit smaller than the cutout that receives the pin on the lens itself. These means there can sometimes be a tiny amount of circumferential rotation of the lens- almost imperceptible. But this movement is so miniscule and is of a nature that does not allow the lens to wobble especially as actual the flanges themselves on the adapter are tight. You can be assured of NOT having this minor issue if you are of a picky nature, but only if you wish to pay a few hundred dollars for any adapter but I am not, so instead I endure the very tiny annoyance that occasionally occurs with some adapters. (As I use many lenses systems I own many adapter types and of necessity buy at the medium priced end of the market.)

If you are planning to shoot with a digital Leica M with live view which is what I guess you intend of course you only need the Leica M adapter.