No AF support on the new Kipon adapter…
Our friend Eduardo sent me an interesting info about the new Kipon adapter:
“I asked the manufactorer:
Does this new adapters allow autofocus? What are the features and characteristics of the micro four thirds version?
Answer:
Thank you for your mail and interest about our KIPON adapters. For the different system between mirrorless camera and DSLR lens,autofocus speed is a little slow,so we gave up the autofocus function. Using this adapter, under M model,can control the aperture though the dial ring or button in the panel of camera.also A mode is also available,also MF assistant function. Many thanks.
Shanghai Transvision”
Website: http://www.dl-kipon.com. Non electronic Kipon adapters are already available on eBay (Click here).
Ben
10 months ago |From a video standpoint, I don’t give a shit, but for photographers AF would’ve been nice.
Daemonius
10 months ago |Trust me it doesnt, 4/3 lens on m4/3 are really slow. Aswell as Sony lens on NEXes (except SLT adapter ofc).
Bart
10 months ago |It totally depends on the lens and subject and to some extent the technique you use.
For scenery, AF of most 4/3 lenses on a m4/3 camera (especially the E-P3, E-M5, G2/3 and such) is totally fine, and more convenient then manual focus.
This is still true to some extent for things like ‘stage work’, but when things start to move more rapidly, AF becomes less useful to completely useless.
That is with lenses like the 11-22, 12-60, 50-200, 14-35 etc, so those that are not prepared for ‘imager AF’. When looking at the 14-54mkII, its about in the same league as the slower focusing m4/3 lenses (like the 17 or 20mm pancakes or the first generation m.zuiko 14-42).
Additionally, it helps a lot to use magnified live-view during AF with such lenses, it results in a much smaller AF area and speeds up things quite a bit.
Last but not least, on the E-M5, using the high frame-rate for the EVF also speeds up things.
Ryan
10 months ago |So it’s a half good product. If the price is low, I would be interested.
ArtP
10 months ago |Well, better than nothing Iguess, but too bad they couldn’t pull it off (I would have taken slow AF over no AF) Not having any Canon lenses, it doesn’t much matter to me tho.
Jesse
10 months ago |But does it power IS?
JR
10 months ago |I would like to know this too. IS is pretty essential to get the most out of some lenses like the Canon 100mm L Macro.
Guest
10 months ago |HAHAHAHA POWER IS?
Autofocus would be 50x easier to implement than power IS
Sina
10 months ago |The Image Stabilization in Canon lenses are entirely within the lens. All the sensors (gyro, accelerometer, etc) are housed INSIDE the lens, along with the processor for the stabilization. All it would take it a connection to power it up. ._.
marsupial2go
10 months ago |Interesting that the new one has electronic aperture manipulation. I’ve owned the manual Kipon with built-in iris adjustment for 10 months, never used it, never had an EF lens to mount. I keep it handy just in case, so I wouldn’t buy the electronic one. Available native M43 lenses are at a fairly decent level for the masses, but EF has niche glass for the enterprising shooter.
Miroslav
10 months ago |Canon, Panasonic and Olympus couldn’t make the adapter that would enable DSLR lenses to properly AF on mirrorless bodies. Why would anyone expect Kipon to solve that problem?
spam
10 months ago |It’s not the adapters that are the problem. AF will work as well as the lens/body combination allow. If Olympus/Panasonic implement PDAF (well) on the sensor in a future mFT-body then FT lenses will AF just as fast as on FT-bodies with the current adapters.
Canon already have PDAF sensors on the sensor in their mirrorless body, but I don’t know if the implematation is as good as on a dSLR body. Maybe not, but it will certainly improve on future generation bodies. Again, the adapter isn’t the problem.
Kiron has a much more difficult job however if they wanted to support AF between systems. They’d have to reverse engineer the AF-protocols on both systems and do a conversion in the adapter. Others have figured it out so it’s certainly possible, but understandable that they didn’t.
Miroslav
10 months ago |They could go the Sony way and put a semi transparent mirror in the adapter.
As for the other solutions, there are no pixels dedicated to PDAF on 4/3 or Sony sensors, so the only thing Kipon could do is to use sensor based CDAF on PD optimized lenses. And that is not a good solution, as Olympus has shown.
To expect either of those from Kipon is too much IMO.
JF
10 months ago |In my experience, Kipon is crap. I have a canon FD to m43 adapter that is very bad with lot of mechanical play and bad focus at inifinity. In the other hand my novoflex works perfectly with all my FD lenses…
jules
10 months ago |I just don’t get it. It is not always about speed, slow AF over no AF at all, my choice is a no brainer. They just had to put a disclaimer for the day dreamers..