Use Any Lens on Micro Four-thirds Cameras

Posted on Jan 9, 2014 in Featured, Panasonic

 

Today’s Post by Mark Toal

When Micro Four-thirds mirrorless cameras were Olympus lens MFT adapter introduced a lot of people discovered that that almost every lens ever made could be adapted to work on with these Panasonic and Olympus camera bodies. Since these cameras don’t have mirrors the lenses mounts are much closer to the sensor—under 20mm—allowing room for an adapter to be mounted between the lens and camera body. Panasonic made their first adapters for Leica and full Four-Thirds lenses but since then there are lots more available for many different kinds of lens mounts.

Jasmine-2-Nikon-50mm-Mark-Toal After buying my Lumix G1 I went online and searched Google and eBay for an adapter that would work with my 1970 Nikon 50mm f/1.4 lens that has been a paperweight on my desk for 20 years. It was the lens from my first film SLR. I never wanted to part with it and didn’t think I would ever use it again.

I received the adapter from somewhere in China, put the lens on and marveled at my new, old lens. Because of the smaller sensor on a MFT camera the lens acted liked a 100mm f/1.4 lens, perfect for portraits such as the photo of Jasmine (at right) wearing a hat. Adapted lenses have to be manually focused but the camera will determine the correct exposure went it’s set in Aperture priority mode.

Using adapters with your MFT camera is great way to use those favorite lenses that you haven’t been able to part with. Here’s just a partial list of places to find adapters for your Micro Four-thirds camera: