Lens adapters for under $20?

[George Odell]

As I posted a few days ago, a friend is getting an LS300 and I'd like to have a chance to play with it. Not sure what his plans are for lenses but I have three Minolta MD lenses I can use in the mean time to test it.

Amazon has maybe a dozen of these "under $20" Minolta MD to micro 4/3 adapters. Does it make much difference which one I buy or if you have a name you can suggest, I'd appreciate it.

Not wanting to go high $$ right now, though. Just playing around.

Additional info:

I see there already is a posting on this down below. My Minolta's are all manual focus and manual iris. I'm looking at the Fotodiox adapter for $23 at Amazon. That brand seems to be well liked from reading this other post.

[Steve Rosen]

I have an old Minolta 50mm f1.4 that I was given by a friend and bought a Fotodiox adapter - it works fine - the lens is pretty decent too, although you don't hear much about them anymore...

[Noa Put]

The main issue with these cheap adapters can be that they don't exactly fit, there often is some play or they are very difficult to attach and to get off again, but you might get lucky and get one that's a perfect fit.

[George Odell]

Originally Posted by Steve Rosen

I have an old Minolta 50mm f1.4 that I was given by a friend and bought a Fotodiox adapter - it works fine - the lens is pretty decent too, although you don't hear much about them anymore...

So using this camera's electronic scan/crop function are you adjusting so that you can obtain the full diagonal coverage of this 50mm lens?

I have a Minolta 50mm, a 135mm and a 35mm F1.8 WA that was quite sharp at mid F range.

Be very interested in seeing how well that last one works. I almost gave this kit away... with the camera... to a church tag sale last year. It might have brought them $2, if they were lucky.

[Steve Rosen]

George, I only have the 50, but like all full frame lenses, it and the 35 would cover the full sensor at 100% VSM... And because the LS300 sensor is smaller, you would be using the center of the lens which would be the sharpest on a wide angle.

I was suspicious of the Minolta lens I have because it's not a "pro" icon like Nikon, but it focuses in the correct direction, which Nikon lenses don't, and adapted to the smaller sensor looks as sharp at f1.4 (which, BTW, is really closer to T2) as an old 50mm Nikor I also have on my lens drawer...

[George Odell]

Originally Posted by Steve Rosen

George, I only have the 50, but like all full frame lenses, it and the 35 would cover the full sensor at 100% VSM...

I realized after I typed it I was not thinking correctly... but I was in the car.

The concern for me with so-called "Super 35" is it is based on the motion picture film camera orientation and not a 35mm SLR. Whereas we normally shoot with the SLR so the film is advancing horizontally and, therefore, utilize the much larger frame size of 36mm wide by 24mm high, when used for motion pictures the film is advancing vertically. The frame is now only 24mm wide.

You start out with a loss of some 33% over what that SLR lens can fully and easily cover. Too bad.That means my Minolta 35mm will end up with a field of view on the LS300 of something like a 52mm.

The specs I found on line say their sensor is 23.46mm X 15.64mm. I can only assume this is active scanning area.

[George Odell]

I took delivery on my Fotodiox Minolta SLR to 4/3" adapter this past week and my friend took delivery of his new LS300. He's letting me use it for a bit to test it out.

Have to say that Fotodiox adapter is a quality product. The fit is absolutely prefect with no play whatsoever. The three SLR full frame lenses (I have a 35mm, 50mm and a 135mm Minolta) all go on and off with no fussing.

The 35mm, which I like the best for general use, is giving me the coverage of about a 52mm.