Walking in the rain - NEX-5N & Canon nFD 50mm f1.2. Shot through car window.
Conurus is of course famous for the conversion of Contax Auto Focus N lenses to Canon EF bodies which retain auto focus function of the N lenses. Now they have teamed up with one of my favourite Japanese lens adapter maker, Metabones, to produce an adapter for the NEX mount at allows the NEX cameras to control the aperture from the camera. Auto focus is not available, unfortunately, but it's a huge step towards making EF lenses to work like E mount lenses, without the auto focus. We all know that EF mount is all digital and there is no easy way to set the aperture, except to set it on the Canon camera, then press the Depth of Field Preview button while unmounting the lens. This will retain the last aperture setting on the lens, but if you need to change the aperture again, you will have to remount the lens on the Canon body and repeat the steps again.
The price of the Metabones EF adapter is $399. Not cheap by any means for an adapter, but for those who want to use the 35mm f1.4, 50mm f1.0/1.2, or the famous 85mm f1.2 lenses, this adapter may be worth it. However, my thinking is that if I already have these kind of lenses (which I do), why not just use them on Canon bodies? $400 is a lot of dough for an adapter.
I know of at least one other company in China is doing the same thing, to reverse engineer the communications protocols of the EF and E-mount camera/lens. So far they have not succeeded in building an adapter that makes the EF lenses talk to the NEX cameras, but I am sure it will be a matter of time. When that happens, a flood of other imitations will be everywhere and hopefully we will be seeing much cheaper versions. I don't mind buying one of these if it's under $100.
No doubt it's an interesting product, but I don't see a lot of people will buy one at this price.
But if you have a Sony FS100 then it will be worth it
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