Minolta Vectis V - Sony E "MONSTER Adapter" Review

petesidewalk wrote: I have observed the exposure flickering/ readjusting on both my A5100 and NEX 6. Neil, have you experienced this? It also disengages the manual focus control and is diffcult to rotate the manual focus rings of the 22-80 (both copies) and 80-240. Not so much on my 400 f/8 so much. Thanks all.

With all the lenses except the 22-80mm I have had no problems what so ever .
With my 22-80mm the focus ring is quite stiff , some times it seems more so than others .
It has nothing to do with anything disengaging , the focus ring and the focus motor are not mechanically connected , just electronically .
As you turn the focus ring a fine cog turns a corresponding cog on what looks like a motor / servo .
The speed that you turn it and direction is then processed and in turn operates the focus motor .
The same as way that native E-mount lenses work ( though possibly a different method).

It seems to me that 20 years of very little manual focussing has caused things to stiffen up a bit .

I have a few 22-80mm lenses that need the elements taking out for cleaning , when I do I'm going to see if I can get some lubricant between the inner and outer bits .
I have a scrap one somewhere ( no front element at all in it ) that I will experiment on , or cut in half to see how it works to work out how to improve it .
It needs to be a little loser , but still have some resistance for fine focus control .

With the 22-80mm lens only , I have experienced this flickering and resetting . As it hasn't happened with any other of my lenses I think what is happening is that as the focussing ring is "forced" around it twists both the body of the lens in the adapter , and possibly the adapter itself , it is becoming disconnected briefly and causes it to reset .

If that's happening with some of your other lenses it sounds like the focus ring is the issue too .

The lens might need to have the AF/MF button pressed , or I find it easier to just release the adapter briefly .
The AF/MF button is not an on/off switch , it is a momentary type switch that sends a signal to control chip / brains of the lens to switch focus control between camera or MF ring .

I will keep you informed .

Regards , Neil .

   

Cool. I am interested in using the 400 f8.
Can someone show me where the manual focus ring of 400 f8?
And so actually how does it work for the adapter?
Without the adapter, the manual focus ring cannot be rotated.
And with the adapter, the internal lens motor ie enpowered and can be rotated for manual focus. Right?
Please share.
Thank you

Thanks Greg,
My stupid thought is whether I can turn the manual focus ring by force even without the adapter.
Or if I can just remove the gear from the internal motor, then I can the lens manually.
Any experience to share?

Faithyeung wrote: Thanks Greg, My stupid thought is whether I can turn the manual focus ring by force even without the adapter. Or if I can just remove the gear from the internal motor, then I can the lens manually. Any experience to share?

I had the very same thought when I was trying out the adapter for the first time. . Neil explained very well how the manual focus works (or doesn't work)on the V lenses. My latest thought is if I can cover one or more of the contacts to get the 17mm lens to manually focus with the aperture wide open. I tried the adapter on the NEX VG20 and it cycles the aperture while intermittently engaging, then disengaging the manual focus system. The lens would be great for video, even if used wide open.

Greg

Edited by petesidewalk - 08 January 2016 at 17:32

Faithyeung wrote: Thank you Neil and Greg

Your welcome .
What camera were you thinking of using it on ?

Neil, thank you for your help. I already get the adapter from John. But as Hong Kong's weather is not good, I don't have chance to take outdoor photos by using my Vectis V lenses.

For reference, all Vectis V lenses on full frame body such as Sony A7R2 will have vignetting clearly visible except V 50mm f3.5 macro. Vignetting on 50mm macro is acceptable for me. Can see the photos I tested indoor here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/hokafai/sets/72157663794177342

neilt3 wrote: Thank you for the update . And thank you for posting some test shots . It's a few months away before I will be buying an a7ii , so it's good to see some shots with it . Particularly ones from the 22-80mm . The vignetting in this shot has me a bit confused though . The odd shape looked as though it was caused by a baffle on the rear of the lens , but having had a look at one of mine , this can not be the case . I think your adapter is of the second batch made , and Greg's and mine are of the first batch , but looking at your shots , they are still identical . It's a bit of a disappointment , as it doesn't look like the lenses can be modified to remove the cause of the vignetting . I will have to wait and see until I get an E-mount full frame , but they are very distinct , though cropping would still be acceptable . Not sure how that will effect the resulting equivalent focal length . Thank again .

Looking at the 2 photos that are taken by using 22-80mm set at 22mm, it is very strange that the lens seems rotate a bit more than the other lens when attaching to the monster adaptor. But despite this vignetting problem, and considering v lenses are originally designed for APS-H format (focal length x 1.27), actually I quite accept the performance of 22-80mm after cropped in photoshop or directly taking photos by using APS-C mode in A7RII.

You said you are concerning about the equivalent focal length after cropped. So, once I have time, I will take photos to compare the view angle of V22-80mm. Check whether it is equivalent to 24-100mm in 35mm format after cropped (NOT using APS-C mode in A7RII). It is quite an interesting project. haha.