Fujifilm Mirrorless with vintage lenses

[Cyril]

Hello,
I'm a hobbyist and shoot mostly travel photography, street photography and portraits of my friends and family. I've been using a Nikon D7000 for a year now, previously owned a Nikon D70s too. For the past months I've found that whenever I'm walking about or traveling, I've always wished it were less cumbersome to carry around and shoot.

Anyways, I've tried a number of mirrorless cameras in the local camera stores and I really like the Fujifilm mirrorless cameras with electronic viewfinders. I like the EVF but--also very important-- I love the focus peaking feature!
This would allow me to keep the vintage Nikon lenses that I love and shoot in manual in an even more comfortable way.
Anyone using those with vintage glass and X-mount adapters? I'd greatly appreciate any feedback!
Thanks

[Akira]

Hi, Cyril, I'd been using Fujifilm X-E3 and X-T3 earlier this year.  The focusing old manual focus lenses with the peaking and the magnification functions were great help.  Actually, those functions are pretty common on virtually any mirrorless cameras with or without the electronic viewfinders.

I have a 50-year-old Nikkor-H 50/2.0 and have used it on X-E3.  The focusing was a breeze utilizing those functions.  The images yielded from the proprietary X-Trans sensors from Fujifilm camras are amazing, especially processed in Capture One Express Fujifilm which is free.  Here is a thread where I posted some images shot with X-E3 and Nikkor-H 50/2.0:

https://nikongear.net/revival/index.php?topic=8808.msg145341#msg145341

Hope it would be of any help.

[Airy]

I've been using Olympus m43 cameras since 2012 I believe. I was very happy to give my old Canon FD lenses a second life. The 50/1.4 performs excellently (except some puple fringing wide open), and the 135/2 is also interesting (same issue though).

Sadly, I found a mint copy of the Angénieux 180/2.3 in FD mount but did not buy it. Me stupid - it cost only 200 €... but the Nikkor 180/2.8 ED also gave excellent results, for paparazzo-style usages or birding.

My Nikkors are normally used on Nikons, but the 55/2.8 micro was also an interesting lens on m43.

I never used any APS-C camera, mirrorless or not, so I cannot recommend anything in particular. I guess that using an APS-C to get "extra reach" may be tempting, and focus peaking definitely eases the use of manual focus lenses. Stopped-down mode means muddy viewfinder pics at times, but there is a difference between disagreeable and "not usable" which you may put at use.

[armando_m]

I have used the following nikkors on my x-t3
105 f2.5 ais
35 f2.8 pre ais
55 f1.2

My adapter has an aperture ring so
I can also use the Afs lenses, all manual

It is a great combination

[pluton]

Using a Novoflex FUX-NIX adapter, I've been occasionally shooting with manual focus Nikon-mount lenses on my small Fujifilm XE- cameras since 2013. Some of the old Nikon lenses do better than others, eg: The Micro-Nikkor 55/3.5 is good in the close-up range, but shows it's weakness at infinity on the APS-C frame, presumably due to the greater degree of enlargement needed for APS-C. Some favorites from my small collection are the 180/2.8 ED AiS, AF-S 300/4D(used as manual focus), Zeiss ZF 100/2 and ZF 50/2.
The only downer with the setup is that accurate focusing at smaller stops, like f/5.6 and f/8 and beyond, is difficult, EVEN WITH the added luxury of EVF peaking and zoom-in.

[Cyril]

Well, I got my fuji x-t100 and it's everything I wanted 
Nikon AI-S and G lenses and my M42 Chinon lens works perfectly, it' brilliant. This doesn't feel like an entry level camera AT ALL. 

[Luc]

Congrats on the new purchase, Cyril. Nice camera that X-T100, I've seen great looking images shot with it.

[Cyril]

Hey boys and girls. Just a quick heads up if you try MF lenses on your Fuji or mirrorless body. I've discovered that many of my shots since I've had the camera were out of focus. The MF distance scale is off on my wide angle lenses AND my portrait lenses, probably because they were shot adapted. For example, setting my 20mm f/3.5 Nikkor to focus to infinity produces blurry images...  Another example with an M42 lens: if I want to set my Revuenon Special 35mm f/2.8 to get a sharp image of a subject that is 5 meters away, I have to set the focus to 1.5 meter. 

Anyways, just wanted to let you guys know so that this might help someone one day. Remember to use focus peaking or you might be really disappointed by your shots

[Akira]

Hey boys and girls. Just a quick heads up if you try MF lenses on your Fuji or mirrorless body. I've discovered that many of my shots since I've had the camera were out of focus. The MF distance scale is off on my wide angle lenses AND my portrait lenses, probably because they were shot adapted. For example, setting my 20mm f/3.5 Nikkor to focus to infinity produces blurry images...  Another example with an M42 lens: if I want to set my Revuenon Special 35mm f/2.8 to get a sharp image of a subject that is 5 meters away, I have to set the focus to 1.5 meter. 

Anyways, just wanted to let you guys know so that this might help someone one day. Remember to use focus peaking or you might be really disappointed by your shots

Cheap adapters tend to be inaccurate in terms of the flange back, in order to allow inaccurately calibrated lenses to focus at infinity.  The shorter the focal lengths, the more affected by that.

[Birna Rørslett]

Hyperfocal focusing on any camera with a lens mounted to an adapter is risky business. That is, if one trusts the engraved distance scale.

[Cyril]

This seems to be common knowledge, but it was really hard to find reliable information that topic. The focusing scales on manual lenses are inaccurate when using APS-C mirrorless. Is it a sensor problem or a mirrorless/SLR problem or both? I don't know much about optics and sensors...

[Birna Rørslett]

More an adapter dimensional issue. The register tolerance is extremely small, ie. for an 'F' mount only 0.05 mm. Many cheap adapters are nowhere this accurate.

[pluton]

This seems to be common knowledge, but it was really hard to find reliable information that topic. The focusing scales on manual lenses are inaccurate when using APS-C mirrorless. Is it a sensor problem or a mirrorless/SLR problem or both? I don't know much about optics and sensors...

The focusing scales on stills camera lenses often lack the accuracy we might desire.  Add the greater degree of enlargement from APS-C, and the once-small (and easily ignored) inaccuracies are now magnified.
Fun experiment:  Place a focusing target on the wall.  Using a digital camera on a tripod, measure distance to the target with a tape measure.  Compare the reading from the distance scale on the lens to the actual measured distance.

[Cyril]

I'm using a K&F Concept Nikon G to Fuji X adapter. I just checked and on the Amazon description tab, it mentions this problem.

Please note: Infinity focus position：the position of the infinity mark 【∞】of the telephoto lens or super telephoto lens is shifted slightly to the positive side to enable focus adjustment even when focus shift is caused due to temperature changes.The shift range is denoted by an L-shaped line, Be sure to check the focus through the viewfinder even when you shoot at infinity.

Same thing is mentioned on the M42 to Fuji X adapter of the same brand. These aren't 5 euro adapter from eBay and yet...
But hey, at least infinity focus is achievable for every lens!

The focusing scales on stills camera lenses often lack the accuracy we might desire.  Add the greater degree of enlargement from APS-C, and the once-small (and easily ignored) inaccuracies are now magnified.
Fun experiment:  Place a focusing target on the wall.  Using a digital camera on a tripod, measure distance to the target with a tape measure.  Compare the reading from the distance scale on the lens to the actual measured distance.

I did a non-scientific version of this experiment! The focusing distance scale on the lenses are really off! But infinity focus can be achieved and besides that problem, the lenses work just perfectly and are a pleasure to use 

[pluton]

I did a non-scientific version of this experiment! The focusing distance scale on the lenses are really off! But infinity focus can be achieved and besides that problem, the lenses work just perfectly and are a pleasure to use 

Yes, I remember my good old [naive] days when I could set the focus ring to infinity and know that infinity would be in focus, except that it probably wasn't exactly!  At f/8 or f/11 it worked, but there was often trouble at f/2.8.
If the choice is between the lens markings/infinity stop being inexact, or having the lens able to focus "past infinity", I have grudgingly come to accept that having the focus travel able to pass through infinity is the better option.