I got back from New York City yesterday – among other things, I was working on a new series done in the subway – and waiting for me was a new NEX-to-Leica-M-series adapter. This one was made by Novoflex, and it looks about the same as the RainbowImaging adapter, even though it costs almost 10 times as much. I put it on the camera, and attached the 16-18-21 mm Tri-Elmar. The flange distance is perfect.
I am amazed at the Novoflex pricing. If the adapter were made by Leica, I’d wince, shrug my shoulders, and open my wallet; the price is, sadly, about what you’d expect from them. However, the pricing is clearly out of line with the materials and the labor involved to make it. I guess they figure that the customers will compare the price of the adapter to the price of the Leica lens that goes on the front end, rather than the camera body that goes on the back.
In for a penny, in for a pound, say I. I’ll let you know how it works out.
Hi Jim, – just found your page while trying to see if I should get an NEX-5 so I can use my M Sumicrons, 35, 50, 90. The adaptor question is interesting as it is, after all, just a spacer. As long as a firm fit, so no sloppy ‘lost motion’ while focusing, I wouldn’t have thought it too much of an engineering challenge. A surprising choice from about $27 to $270 ! Someone must be doing a good job of them at a fair price.
What do I want? A 10×8 with short DoF where the eye, the lashes, are crystal clear and pin sharp. Also a little creative video to see if a Sony FS100 could be worthwhile.
New NEX-5 software now includes ‘peaking’ for focus assist – great idea!
Regards, Phil
Phil,
Thanks for the tip on the firmware update.
It sounds like your intended use requires really accurate focusing, so you’d be using live view. In that case, you could use the cheaper adapter with the too-short flange distance. It’s so far off that I think it must be a design error rather than manufacturing tolerances, so you probably wouldn’t get an adapter that had too long a flange distance and didn’t allow you to focus to infinity.
Jim
Hi Jim – it appears Flange to Film plane in the Leica M is 27.8mm. Same on E mount is 18mm so the adaptor needs to be 9.8mm or a smidge (0.010″) over 3/8″ thick. If adaptor is too long (can’t focus past 10′) than on my 35mm M lens 10 ft to inf. is about 0.4mm or 0.016″. Thats a big error. If they actually measured the Sony, its possible that the plane of focus is behind the anti-aliasing filter which wasn’t allowed for. This would be a pretty basic design error but not impossibe. 0.008″ taken off each side of the adaptor with a vertical spindle surface grinder would fix this as long as the locks work OK and the flanges are thick enough. If lens focuses past infinity and this bothers anyone (catadioptric lenses always did) try a paper gasket or two between mount and adaptor but check that it locks on correctly. Normal photo copy paper is approx 0.005″ thick so an easy experiment as long as the adaptor is more or less permanently on the camera.
For focusing/exposure I am considering Marshall 5″ or 7″ monitor with HDMI, peaking and false colour which is mainly for other video cameras. Any advice in this regard would be welcome. – Incidently, I like your work Jim, very nice stuff…..
Phil
My RainbowImaging adapter is too short, not too long. Thus it does focus past (way past) infinity. The only problem is that I guess-focus a lot, and the scale doesn’t read right. For your application, that wouldn’t be a problem.
I’ve never used an external monitor for video, so I can’t help you there.
Good luck, and thanks for the kind words.
Jim