Fotodiox Pro Shift EOS-NEX shift adapter as a means of taking "medium format" pictures on a small format camera. Review from Rodion Eshmakov

Adapter material specifically for Radozhiva prepared Rodion Eshmakov.

View of the Fotodiox Pro Shift EOS-NEX adapter from the side of the E mount.

View of the Fotodiox Pro Shift EOS-NEX adapter from the side of the E mount.


A shift adapter is a device designed to convert a lens from a system with a long working distance into a shift lens for a system with a shorter working distance. A shift lens differs from a conventional lens in the possibility of shifting (“shift” - “shift”) of the lens in a selected direction parallel (this is how it differs from a tilt lens) to the plane of the camera matrix, which is usually used to correct perspective distortions. This is often reflected in the name of the lenses: there is an article on Radozhiv about a rare Ukrainian lens Mir-67 PKS 35/2.8, where "PCR" stands for "forward bias correction". Using a shift adapter allows you to convert any compatible lens to a shift lens. For example, ARAX and Hartblei shift adapters from the Pentacon Six medium format SLR system to small format SLR cameras have been known for quite some time. The emergence and distribution of mirrorless cameras with a short working distance (~16-20 mm) made it possible to create shift adapters for lenses of small-format SLR cameras. This article presents a modern shift adapter from the Canon EF system to the Sony E mount manufactured by the American company Fotodiox, which specializes in the production of specialized accessories for photographic equipment.

Design features

The Fotodiox Shift EOS-NEX adapter belongs to the "Pro" line of Fotodiox adapters, its cost on the manufacturer's website at the time of writing is $ 110 - this is about 5 times more expensive than ordinary Chinese EOS-NEX adapters and 2-3 times more expensive than a cheap one Chinese EOS-NEX adapter equipped with autofocus and aperture control electronics.

Fotodiox PRO Shift EOS-NEX (left) and a regular inexpensive EOS-NEX adapter.

Fotodiox PRO Shift EOS-NEX (left) and a regular inexpensive EOS-NEX adapter.

At the same time, the shift adapter is not equipped with any electronics, it does not have CPU contacts for the camera and lens. This means that when using Canon EF lenses, aperture control, electronic focus ring on STM lenses, autofocus, stabilizer, transmission will not work through this adapter. EXIF.

View of the Fotodiox Pro Shift EOS-NEX adapter from the side of the EF mount. There are no contacts for the CPU lens.

View of the Fotodiox Pro Shift EOS-NEX adapter from the side of the EF mount. There are no contacts for the CPU lens.

Why, one wonders, then it was necessary to make an EF mount? The thing is that the working distance of the Canon EF system is the smallest of the common small-format reflex systems - only 44 mm. Thanks to this, optics from many other systems can be installed on the EF mount through simple cheap adapter rings - M42, Nikon F, Olympus OM, Contax / Yashica, etc.

View of the Fotodiox Pro Shift EOS-NEX adapter from the E-mount side. There are no contacts for the camera's CPU either.

View of the Fotodiox Pro Shift EOS-NEX adapter from the E-mount side. There are no contacts for the camera's CPU either.

The adapter is made entirely of metal - aluminum and chrome-plated brass. Its mass is very large - approximately 100-150 g, that is, almost like a typical fifty-fifty lens. The adapter looks very reliable, but in reality it has certain problems with this: when using the adapter, I encountered spontaneous loosening of the screws several times, and once when carrying the camera carelessly with Pentacon 125 / 2.8 in my backpack, the entire front bayonet part of the adapter “with meat” was completely torn off: it turned out that the entire load (which can reach 1.5-2 kg) rests on 3 small screws with an M1 thread, which is completely unacceptable. Subsequently, I replaced the mounting screws with more reliable M1.5 by cutting new threads. There were no complaints about the accuracy of fitting the working length during operation.

Fotodiox Pro Shift EOS/NEX on Sony A7s with Rubinar 500/5.6 lens weighing 1.6 kg.

Fotodiox Pro Shift EOS/NEX on Sony A7s with a Rubinar 500 / 5.6 lens weighing 1.6 kg.

The Fotodiox Shift EOS-NEX adapter allows you to shift the optical axis by 9 mm in each direction. To do this, hold down the metal lever on the adapter and force the lens to move, then release the lever. The guide is serrated to achieve discrete offset settings in 1mm increments.

Fotodiox Shift EOS-NEX with Rubinar 300/4.5 lens. By the way, it was on him that I got the first pictures using this adapter.

Working Fotodiox Shift EOS-NEX with a lens Rubinar 300/4.5. By the way, it was on him that I got the first pictures using this adapter.

When the lens is shifted inside the adapter, a rather poorly matted surface is exposed, which can introduce additional reflection of light and reduce image contrast. And in general, the factory blackening of the internal surfaces of the adapter is rather mediocre, I had to blacken it myself.

View of the Fotodiox Shift EOS-NEX adapter in the maximum shifted state from the side of the EF mount.

View of the Fotodiox Shift EOS-NEX adapter in the maximum shifted state from the side of the EF mount.

The shift adapter allows you to select the direction of shifting the optical axis, for which the EF mount, together with the movement mechanism, can be rotated 360 degrees in one direction. To do this, you need to press on the side metal ears of the adapter, located opposite each other, and turn the moving part in the only convenient direction. The rotation is discrete, it is always easy to achieve strictly horizontal or vertical orientations of the displacement direction.

View of the Fotodiox Shift EOS-NEX adapter in the most shifted state from the side of the Sony E mount. You can see one of the "lugs" of the adapter.

View of the Fotodiox Shift EOS-NEX adapter in the most shifted state from the side of the Sony E mount. You can see one of the "lugs" of the adapter.

It is easiest to operate the adapter when the camera is mounted on a tripod. In fact, I almost always used this design on weight, with my hands. In this case, it is most convenient to work with a vertical shift: in this case, the mass of the lens itself helps.

A heavy objective like Rubinar 500/5.6 facilitates vertical shift from top to bottom.

A heavy objective like Rubinar 500/5.6 facilitates vertical shift from top to bottom.

To work with vertical shift, the shift lock button is conveniently located on the side of the camera handle, and when working with horizontal shift, it is best to place it from below.

Comfort when working with a shift adapter is highly dependent on the mass of the lens. Maneuver light type lens Industar-26M 50 / 2.8 very easy and simple - the displacement occurs smoothly, without jerks. At the same time, an optic weighing more than a kilogram requires considerable effort when shooting handheld, the movement is not so smooth, but with heavy ОКС1-300-1 300/3.5 I didn’t even try to use the shift adapter from my hands. Massive lenses should be fixed in a tripod using a tripod ring and the camera itself should be moved, not the lens.

Using the shift adapter for shooting panoramas

The most obvious use of the shift adapter is to use it on Sony crop cameras with full-frame (usually wide-angle) lenses for perspective correction in the photo - for these purposes the manufacturer conceived it. But I have developed a different tradition of using it, and it is on a full-frame camera - it turned out that using a shift adapter it is very convenient to shoot panoramas by scanning the lens field with a camera matrix, which allows you to get images of a larger format compared to a 36x24 frame when stitching (" shiftoramy"). To combine images into a panorama, it is enough to take 2-3 shots in the extreme and middle positions of the adapter. Matching usually does not require major transformations of the geometry of the source images, so it is useful to select the "move only" option when aligning frames.

The most important requirement when using a shift adapter on full-frame cameras is the sufficiency of the image size formed by the lens. So, to cover a frame of 36x24 mm, the diameter of the round image of the lens must be at least 43.2 mm, which follows from the Pythagorean theorem. In order to avoid vignetting when using a shift adapter on a full-frame camera with a vertical deviation of 9 mm from the axis, it is necessary that the circle of coverage of the lens be at least 55 mm. And for horizontal panning at the same deviation, the required coverage circle is already 59 mm (see figure below).

Some useful calculations for the Fotodiox EOS-NEX shift adapter and a full frame camera: I. The minimum coverage circle of a full frame lens and the area S(1) of a 36x24mm sensor. II. Calculation of lens image diameters D(1,2) and D(1,3), image areas S(1)+2S(2) and S(1)+2S(3), and crop factors (CF) for vertical and horizontal displacements, respectively, at a maximum deviation from the axis of 9 mm.

Some useful calculations for the Fotodiox EOS-NEX shift adapter and a full-frame camera: I. The minimum coverage circle of a full-frame lens and the area S(1) of the matrix is ​​36x24 mm. II. Calculation of lens image diameters D(1,2) and D(1,3), image areas S(1)+2S(2) and S(1)+2S(3) required for working with the shift adapter, as well as crop factors (CF) for vertical and horizontal displacements, respectively, with a maximum deviation from the axis of 9 mm.

It is also easy to calculate the areas of images obtained by panning with horizontal and vertical shifts - they will be 36 and 24 times larger than the area of ​​the original 1.5x1.75 mm frame, respectively. The aspect ratio for the horizontal panorama is 2.25:1, and for the vertical panorama it is 7:6, almost a square.

You can also define crop factor for images obtained on a full-frame camera using a shift adapter: for horizontal panning it is 0.82, and for vertical panning it is 0.76. Fujifilm GFX medium format cameras have a sensor size of 44x33mm and crop factor equals 0.77. Thus, using a shift adapter on a full-frame camera, you can get medium format photographs.

If you shoot using the shift adapter handheld (without a tripod), then random camera deviations occur. Because of them, after stitching and cropping the panorama, the frame size turns out to be somewhat smaller than calculated above.

Using a shift adapter with a compatible lens not only allows you to increase the angle of view of the image in one of the directions, but also increases the physical size of the image. The shift adapter does not affect aperture lens, does not introduce additional distortion in itself. This distinguishes him from speed boosters - collecting lens systems installed behind the lens and increasing it aperture (usually about 1 stop) while decreasing the focal length (usually about 0.7 times). And from the image from anamorphic lenses, the result obtained using a shift adapter is distinguished by a higher resolution of the image and the absence of specific distortions (flattening of bokeh discs, characteristic glare of cylindrical lenses, aberrations).

Most importantly, there are many small format lenses that can work without any restrictions with a shift adapter on full-frame cameras (and Fujifilm GFX cameras), but so far there is not a single speed-booster that does not give vignetting when using with the same lenses on full-frame cameras. Also, there are still no available anamorphic afocal attachments that do not require focusing - high-quality cylindrical optics are expensive to manufacture.

In my experience, most often full-frame lenses with a focal length from 50 mm to 135 mm work without problems with a shift adapter, but there are also short-focus lenses with excessive coverage (for example, a rare specialized Carl Zeiss Jena SO-3.1 P-Flektogon 35 / 2.8 ), as well as super-telephoto cameras like the mirror-lens Samyang 500 / 6.3 and Rubinar (300 / 4.5, 500 / 5.6 work without problems with a shift adapter, 1000/10 - limitedly, 500/8 does not work).

For a year and a half, I have used a shift adapter with almost every lens that could be used with it. I like not only going out of frame in search of something "interesting" like a second peak of sharpness Helios-40 or "goodies" bokeh Rubinar 2 / 100, but I also like to experiment with unusual aspect ratios of the frame, including the “cinematic” 2.33:1, and the “almost square” 4:5.

The following are examples of photos taken with a full frame camera. Sony A7s, Fotodiox EOS-NEX shift adapter, and lenses with focal lengths from 17 mm to 1000 mm:

As you can see from the list, most of the lenses used are classic 75-100mm portrait lenses, which most often have excessive frame coverage and an interesting pattern beyond the 36x24 frames.

Conclusions

The shift adapter has become one of my favorite toys since I bought it. Such an adapter allows you to get a "medium format" picture without an expensive medium format camera, as well as to discover something new in already familiar lenses. An excellent device for gaining new experience in leisurely shooting.

You will find more reviews from readers of Radozhiva here... All Rodion reviews in one place here.

Add a comment: Sandro

 

 

Comments: 6, on the topic: Fotodiox Pro Shift EOS-NEX shift adapter as a means of obtaining “medium format” images on a small format camera. Review from Rodion Eshmakov

  • Dmitriy

    Oh God, what a beautiful girl in the photo with earrings in the form of white balls)) everything is passed, I fell in love☹

    • Specialist

      And I'm into her and another girl with hoop earrings.

      • Victor

        Chord, you need to quickly decide, and all the brides will be sorted out \uXNUMXd\

  • Sandro

    And how is it possible to make even “shiftoramas”? On a tripod with a panoramic head or hand-held?

    • Rodion

      It doesn’t work out even from the hands, then I cut it off. You can use any tripod, you don’t need a panoramic head - the tripod remains motionless when shooting.

  • Evgeniy

    compression as in SF, the result is offset)

Add a comment

Copyright © Radojuva.com. Blog author - Photographer in Kiev Arkady Shapoval. 2009-2023

English version of this article https://radojuva.com/en/2022/07/fotodiox-pro-shift-eos-nex/?replytocom=544033

Versión en español de este artículo https://radojuva.com/es/2022/07/fotodiox-pro-shift-eos-nex/?replytocom=544033