Nikon lenses on Sony

NeilA1975

NeilA1975

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I'm seriously considering the move from Nikon to a Sony A7R and wondering whether or not using an adaptor, I can use my Nikon glass and retain metering with live view histogram and aperture control.
I'll be manual focusing so no requirement for AF.

Cheers
Neil
 
I did that, nearly. Moved from D7000, D70, several film Nikons with lots of decent Nikon optics, and got an adaptor to use the Nikon glass with the Sony (A7, not A7R). So you would think I could answer your question but I sadly cannot. The reason is that I have not felt the need to attach any of my Nikon lenses, AF or MF, to the Sony body. The native Sony lenses are really rather good (I have the 35mm f2.8, the kit lens, the 16-35 and the 24-240) and like them all. I will keep the D7000 for motorsport stuff, along the the 70-200 and 300 f4, The Sony glass is really good but obviously Nikon has a lot more choice in terms of focal length and max aperture. If your motive is to save pounds on your shoulder, like me, the Sony is a good choice.
 
Been there, done that. Had a cheapy adapter to start with but there was a major problem with glare or ghosting of some sort off the sensor. Got a Metabones G adapter instead, which worked well although I suspect it was a little bit too thick and wasn't quite allowing perfect infinity focus. Now the G adapter allows aperture control of G lenses, but it does not do it electornically and there is no way to communicate any lens data to the camera so you can't even set it precisel as there are no clickstops. Metering as with all adapted lenses is stop down. You can focus with open aperture if you want but you have to do all the movements, opening it up to focus and stopping it back down again to take the picture.

Mixing D lenses with the G adapter was cool - set the lens to A and use the clickless aperture ring on the adapter or set the adapter to full stop down and use the ring on the lens.

(I was Using AF-N 35mm f2, AIS 85mm f1.4, AF-D 50mm f1.8 and 70-210 f4, along with a Tokina 11-16mm
 
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Alan Clogwyn said:
Been there, done that. Had a cheapy adapter to start with but there was a major problem with glare or ghosting of some sort off the sensor. Got a Metabones G adapter instead, which worked well although I suspect it was a little bit too thick and wasn't quite allowing perfect infinity focus. Now the G adapter allows aperture control of G lenses, but it does not do it electornically and there is no way to communicate any lens data to the camera so you can't even set it precisel as there are no clickstops. Metering as with all adapted lenses is stop down. You can focus with open aperture if you want but you have to do all the movements, opening it up to focus and stopping it back down again to take the picture.

Mixing D lenses with the G adapter was cool - set the lens to A and use the clickless aperture ring on the adapter or set the adapter to full stop down and use the ring on the lens.

(I was Using AF-N 35mm f2, AIS 85mm f1.4, AF-D 50mm f1.8 and 70-210 f4, along with a Tokina 11-16mm
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Thanks Richard.

not sure I'm following the metering part correctly.
I currently own two lenses which I'm hoping to adapt for use with the Sony. This is a Zeiss 21mm ZF2 2.8 Nikon fit, and a 28-70 2.8 Nikon.
The important thing for me as a landscape photographer is to have accurate manual focus, which is a bit hit and miss with the D800E, especially in lower light. This is where focus peaking has the advantage. Will focus peaking work with third party lenses on the Sony?
Additionally, for the metering/exposure, I rely heavily on my liveview histogram - will this still function on the Sony using third party lenses?

Thanks
Neil
 
Neil, I have the Metabones G adapter that Richard is referring to so if you want to trial it let me know as I don't use it, along with adapters for several other makes to use with the Sony (e mount), that came in a deal with Richard when we swapped systems.
 
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david357 said:
Neil, I have the Metabones G adapter that Richard is referring to so if you want to trial it let me know as I don't use it, along with adapters for several other makes to use with the Sony (e mount), that came in a deal with Richard when we swapped systems.
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That's very kind David. Will certainly let you know!
 
NeilA1975 said:
. Will focus peaking work with third party lenses on the Sony?
Additionally, for the metering/exposure, I rely heavily on my liveview histogram - will this still function on the Sony using third party lenses?
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Yes and Yes.

david357 said:
Neil, I have the Metabones G adapter that Richard is referring to so if you want to trial it let me know as I don't use it, along with adapters for several other makes to use with the Sony (e mount), that came in a deal with Richard when we swapped systems.
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Are you still using the A7 System Dave?
 
Neil, interesting you are looking at Sony. I've just gone from canon to Sony and i consider it an awesome landscape camera.

Lightweight, dynamic range and highly customisable. (If that's a word).

The adapter I'm using for my sigma art 35 and canon lenses is the sigma mc-11 it's really good and I'm sure they do a sigma Nikon mount to Sony version for your Nikon lenses. It's fully communicating and a cool feature of native lenses is you can have it set to magnify to 100% when you turn the manual focus ring, with the sigma adapter this feature also works with my sigma (but not canon lenses). Easy way round that set a custom button to be 100% magnification. Regardless the sigma adapter is really well made and cheaper than metabones.

Are you looking to keep your d800 as a backup and have a lens system that fits both cameras? If not and the redundancy of it not fitting the d800 is not an issue you could really embrace the advantage of the a7 (light weight) and swap your zeiss distagon out for a native mount zeiss Loxia 21 or baits 18 which are brilliant light lenses...?
 
The much cheaper Fhotodiox adaptor I got seems to work much the same way as the Metabones described above. It has its own aperture ring but turning it wide and assuming the Nikon lens has an aperture ring means you can set the aperture using the Nikon lens. Exposure and focus peaking all work. But having got the A7, and wanting a smaller lighter camera, the A7 plus 35mm F2.8 is tiny in comparison to my crop Nikon let alone a full frame, and can just about, but not quite, go in my pocket. It seems like an RX1 at a fraction of the price. The 16-35 adds a bit of weight and bulk, but for a landscape person it is really is a great lens. Ergonomics?, yes the Nikon edges they Sony but if I really wanted ergonomics Fuji would be the choice.
 
Craig_85 said:
Neil, interesting you are looking at Sony. I've just gone from canon to Sony and i consider it an awesome landscape camera.

Lightweight, dynamic range and highly customisable. (If that's a word).

The adapter I'm using for my sigma art 35 and canon lenses is the sigma mc-11 it's really good and I'm sure they do a sigma Nikon mount to Sony version for your Nikon lenses. It's fully communicating and a cool feature of native lenses is you can have it set to magnify to 100% when you turn the manual focus ring, with the sigma adapter this feature also works with my sigma (but not canon lenses). Easy way round that set a custom button to be 100% magnification. Regardless the sigma adapter is really well made and cheaper than metabones.

Are you looking to keep your d800 as a backup and have a lens system that fits both cameras? If not and the redundancy of it not fitting the d800 is not an issue you could really embrace the advantage of the a7 (light weight) and swap your zeiss distagon out for a native mount zeiss Loxia 21 or baits 18 which are brilliant light lenses...?
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Hi Craig,
thanks for your post. Been flirting with the idea of going to Sony for some time now. Looking to let the D800E go but wanting to keep my glass.
Very interesting camera, will probably have a spin with one at Wex this coming weekend.
 
I use a Novoflex adaptor to use my Nikon G and vintage lens on my A7sII. Works perfectly. If you shoot with the new Nikon 24-70 2.8 VR that won't work - its not a G lens!
 
kman said:
I use a Novoflex adaptor to use my Nikon G and vintage lens on my A7sII. Works perfectly. If you shoot with the new Nikon 24-70 2.8 VR that won't work - its not a G lens!
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Thanks.
 
NeilA1975 said:
One thing i have been reading is that Sony raw files are only 11 bit v the Nikons 14 bit.
Interesting article http://www.rawdigger.com/howtouse/sony-craw-arw2-posterization-detection
Has anyone experienced any issues with artifacts as a result?
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There is loads of information on Fred Miranda and dpreview that will drive you insane if you read it for too long!

From memory it is about the raw files being compressed and lossy from 14 bit to 12 bit. This can create some artefacts on high contrast edges with a 4-6stop shadow push! Now, Sony did release a firmware update to give you an uncompressed raw (and twice the file size) option for the a7r2. To begin with the response was positive then most people said there was no difference and went back to compressed. The other posts I read relevant to your situation was that the compressed raw files out of the a7r2 were compared side by side with massive Nikon d810 and the preference as for the Sony images. Although I appreciate rose tinted glasses so at the least no real negative.

The 12 but does not bother me. All I can say is the whatever compressed bit files getting from this camera are better than anything I've seen from any canon for colour, dynamic range and processing flexibility.

However, there are annoying quirks with the Sony relating to 11bit which I have read will lower quality. If you shoot brackets with a Nikon or canon you quite possibly do it in live view in continuous burst mode with a 2 sec delay. Now, I have read with Sony that continuous burst mode (either for sports or brackets) drops you to 11 bit where the files do suffer. Not that you really do need to bracket but when you do you either touch the camera imbetween or need to use a remote with single shot bracketing enabled and press it 3 x for example.

Apparently bulb mode for exposures past 30 secs also drops to 11 bit. This is all from memory so you may want to read up on this. This does not affect me much (both issues make it a weaker astro camera though) but for your long exposure stuff it may or may not cause real world issues.
 
The last firmware update for the a7 now allows you to use 14-bit, uncompressed RAW, so shouldn't be an issue.

Not that I ever saw any issues prior to this update, either.
 
Jon Chalk said:
The last firmware update for the a7 now allows you to use 14-bit, uncompressed RAW, so shouldn't be an issue.

Not that I ever saw any issues prior to this update, either.
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Thanks - isn't that for the A7R2 only?
 
Craig_85 said:
There is loads of information on Fred Miranda and dpreview that will drive you insane if you read it for too long!

From memory it is about the raw files being compressed and lossy from 14 bit to 12 bit. This can create some artefacts on high contrast edges with a 4-6stop shadow push! Now, Sony did release a firmware update to give you an uncompressed raw (and twice the file size) option for the a7r2. To begin with the response was positive then most people said there was no difference and went back to compressed. The other posts I read relevant to your situation was that the compressed raw files out of the a7r2 were compared side by side with massive Nikon d810 and the preference as for the Sony images. Although I appreciate rose tinted glasses so at the least no real negative.

The 12 but does not bother me. All I can say is the whatever compressed bit files getting from this camera are better than anything I've seen from any canon for colour, dynamic range and processing flexibility.

However, there are annoying quirks with the Sony relating to 11bit which I have read will lower quality. If you shoot brackets with a Nikon or canon you quite possibly do it in live view in continuous burst mode with a 2 sec delay. Now, I have read with Sony that continuous burst mode (either for sports or brackets) drops you to 11 bit where the files do suffer. Not that you really do need to bracket but when you do you either touch the camera imbetween or need to use a remote with single shot bracketing enabled and press it 3 x for example.

Apparently bulb mode for exposures past 30 secs also drops to 11 bit. This is all from memory so you may want to read up on this. This does not affect me much (both issues make it a weaker astro camera though) but for your long exposure stuff it may or may not cause real world issues.
Click to expand...

Cheers for the info - i'm trying out an A7R on Saturday at Wex with a Nikon adapter and my Nikon/Zeiss glass, so will see if really for me before I make any final decision.
 
Jon Chalk said:
The last firmware update for the a7 now allows you to use 14-bit, uncompressed RAW, so shouldn't be an issue.

Not that I ever saw any issues prior to this update, either.
Click to expand...

Pretty much the general consensus it seems on the non/issue.

NeilA1975 said:
Cheers for the info - i'm trying out an A7R on Saturday at Wex with a Nikon adapter and my Nikon/Zeiss glass, so will see if really for me before I make any final decision.
Click to expand...

Will the a7r be the final choice? The other thing to read up on is the shutter vibration that this model can suffer from but the a7ii and a7rii avoid with an electronic front curtain!

Swanseajack said:
IIRC the MC-11 adapters are for Sigma and Canon lenses only at present.
Click to expand...

I stand corrected you are right.
 
Craig_85 said:
Will the a7r be the final choice? The other thing to read up on is the shutter vibration that this model can suffer from but the a7ii and a7rii avoid with an electronic front curtain!

.
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Yes, as costs dictate! Read about the vibration so will see what the real impact is if any.
 
Well I managed to have a short play with an A7R this evening with my Zeiss 21 attached via a metabones adaptor. Probably didn't have enough time to play with it to be honest. First impressions are good although the menus are a bit complex compared to the D800E. IQ wise very impressed, certainly on par with my Nikon from the 10 odd shots I took. Another thing I noticed is that the corner colour shading I get on my Nikon with the Zeiss is completely eliminated which is a bonus. Still not sure how the focus peaking works so will have to read up a bit more - seemed to have quite a bit of tolerance - even at f2.8 close focus, some of the far background was shaded in red. Its a good camera but so different design wise it almost feels like a toy.
My biggest concern is that it feels like I'm downgrading........this is a problem for me. Need to have a bit of a think to be sure.
 
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NeilA1975 said:
Well I managed to have a short play with an A7R this evening with my Zeiss 21 attached via a metabones adaptor. Probably didn't have enough time to play with it to be honest. First impressions are good although the menus are a bit complex compared to the D800E. IQ wise very impressed, certainly on par with my Nikon from the 10 odd shots I took. Another thing I noticed is that the corner colour shading I get on my Nikon with the Zeiss is completely eliminated which is a bonus. Still not sure how the focus peaking works so will have to read up a bit more - seemed to have quite a bit of tolerance - even at f2.8 close focus, some of the far background was shaded in red. Its a good camera but so different design wise it almost feels like a toy.
My biggest concern is that it feels like I'm downgrading........this is a problem for me. Need to have a bit of a think to be sure.
Click to expand...

The menus are a nightmare I agree. The good thing is the amount of buttons that you can customise to nearly anything you want, unlike Canon who say this button can be this feature or this pretty much.

The corner shading is interesting, I was going to say is the auto lens correction on in camera but I don't think Metabones communicates for that information. Maybe it is a benefit of mirrorless that I am yet to discover due to the flange distance or something else?

Personally with regard to focus peaking I am not convinced it is for us landscapers. I have assigned it to a custom button, set it to 'mid' and 'yellow' then also set another custom button to change the picture profile to B & W to make it more visible then tried using it as an aid to establish what aperture to use for required depth of field. Then turned it off, and changed back to colour and magnified near and far points of focus to check critical focus. Which for me so far the focus peaking has not achieved...(Also as you stop down diffraction possibly kicks in and reduces the amount of high contrast edges visible and the focus peaking seems to drop off in certain scenes?)

Do you use a depth of field preview button on your Nikon when focussing Neil, or do you focus wide open where you think it should be then stop down after? Bear in mind the Sony will be stopped down to whatever aperture you are at anyway. One cool feature with with the Sony is (assuming you are not shooting shutter priority) if you want to zoom in to a dark bit of the scene to check focus but the monitor brightness is set a bit low (to save the rubbish battery!) you can just up the exposure compensation to brighten what you are seeing and make it easier to check. Then hit the 'disp' button to scroll onto the live histogram and set it correct. Coming from Canon this is an advantage because if you have exposure simulation previewed when you focus with the dof preview button depressed it all goes dark. If you don't have exposure simulation enabled the screen nicely brightens automatically as you move around zoomed in but you don't get live histogram!

I actually think the camera for you may be the D810 if it has better live view implementation? I don't know much about Nikons but it may be similar to the 5d2/3 where the IQ is very similar but the 5d3 gets a better screen making it more usable in some ways.

The only reason to go Sony is to save weight. Which, let's face it the D750 may achieve (if it has good enough live view compared to your D800) as without the extra batteries and lens adapters will be the same weight anyway.

I'm pleased with my Sony, but then I have not had this sort of dynamic range before, the files are superb. If you are after an IQ upgrade it seems you will have to save up for the A7r2 to really enjoy that benefit perhaps?
 
Craig_85 said:
The menus are a nightmare I agree. The good thing is the amount of buttons that you can customise to nearly anything you want, unlike Canon who say this button can be this feature or this pretty much.
Click to expand...

Not overly worried about the menus to be honest and the fact theyre customisable is significant.

The corner shading is interesting, I was going to say is the auto lens correction on in camera but I don't think Metabones communicates for that information. Maybe it is a benefit of mirrorless that I am yet to discover due to the flange distance or something else?
Click to expand...

From what I've read over the past it has something to do with the way the light hits the IR filter in camera. I'm no expert but this has always been a pain in the backside to correct. A huge plus that this isn't 'obvious' (it could still be there perhaps but analysing the images taken it appears to have completely disappeared).

Personally with regard to focus peaking I am not convinced it is for us landscapers. I have assigned it to a custom button, set it to 'mid' and 'yellow' then also set another custom button to change the picture profile to B & W to make it more visible then tried using it as an aid to establish what aperture to use for required depth of field. Then turned it off, and changed back to colour and magnified near and far points of focus to check critical focus. Which for me so far the focus peaking has not achieved...(Also as you stop down diffraction possibly kicks in and reduces the amount of high contrast edges visible and the focus peaking seems to drop off in certain scenes?)
Click to expand...

As long as the live view manual focusing works well and isnt noisy even in low light the all is good, I see the FP as a bonus addition.

Do you use a depth of field preview button on your Nikon when focussing Neil, or do you focus wide open where you think it should be then stop down after?
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I usually focus wide open then stop stop down. Helps me hit the 'correctish' HF distance.

I actually think the camera for you may be the D810 if it has better live view implementation? I don't know much about Nikons but it may be similar to the 5d2/3 where the IQ is very similar but the 5d3 gets a better screen making it more usable in some ways.
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Yes, it does have the superior LV implementation but its also the same weight as the D800E. The weight saving and the MF ability to me is worth its weight in gold.

The only reason to go Sony is to save weight. Which, let's face it the D750 may achieve (if it has good enough live view compared to your D800) as without the extra batteries and lens adapters will be the same weight anyway.

I'm pleased with my Sony, but then I have not had this sort of dynamic range before, the files are superb. If you are after an IQ upgrade it seems you will have to save up for the A7r2 to really enjoy that benefit perhaps?
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The weight and the MF ability is what I need. IQ wise not sure its something you can improve on too much unless upgrading to MF and a digital back perhaps, but selling my house is not an option!
OK, decided. the A7R it is!
 
Well i purchased the A7R - just awaiting for it to arrive. Both my Nikon fit lenses have an aperture ring, so think the Nikon F to Sony E mount is the choice of adapter. Now this is where im strupggling a bit to decide. Metabones Nikon F to Sony E mount seems to be a good choice as does the Fotodiox G adaptor also at a cheaper cost. Decisions decisions!
 
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