conurus

[AquilaN]

Hi,
I wish to ask You two, maybe three questions:
1) Do You know if it is posibile to use Contax N series as maunal (MF/ME) lenses without any electrical connection from body?
2) If above is positive, could You tell me is there a posibility to make half-conversion for eg. Vario-Sonnar 70-300? As half-way I mean to change mount phisicaly only and to not even change electronic?
2a) Or if electronic replacement is needed to achive manual aperture control without camera body, could You provide any hope for such replacement in electronics to convert orginal Contax N lens to manual, full functional and cam-body indepentent glass?

I know my question may look odd, but I wish to expalin it. I wish to use Contax N lens (after eg. described above half-conversion) with simple Cannon-EFS adaptor to my Sony Nex-5. Mentioned adapter (EOS-->NEX) do not have any electrical connection but it works with generic cannon lenses. I am curious is there any posibility to use Contax N lenses with this kind of adapter after any conversion? I know Your standard convestion procedure provides AE and AF, but while using 3rd part mount adapter for NEXs - there isn't any posibility to use any AE/AF. It would be great advantage to provide ME (Manual Aperture Control) instead of AE.

Thanks for Your time and replay,

AquilaN

[conurus]

1, All Contax lenses in N mount and 645 mount have "fly-by-wire" apertures, if you allow me to use an analogy from modern aviation controls. The aperture ring is not in any way coupled to the aperture diaphragm. The aperture diaphragm is operated by electronic commands from the camera body. Other than a Contax N or 645 camera body, our conurus circuit board is the only other way to issue the proper commands to operate the aperture diaphragm of a Contax N or 645 lens.

2, our circuit board does support the functionality you proposed. When any Contax N lens converted by us is powered, it will detect if there is a camera body. If none is detected, it will start detecting the position of the aperture ring of the lens, and control the aperture diaphragm of the lens accordingly. To do what you describe, all it takes is to supply power to the conurus circuit board. Some soldering and drilling is required, as is an external power source. (You must disconnect the external power source and the diode before the lens can be used on a Canon camera body again.)

[cradle]

Dear Bo-Ming,

For point 2 you have answered, I would like to ask if it is also true for conurus circuit board for Contax 645? If yes, I would like to install it on my bellows with external power source.

I know this thread is a little bit old but I can't find a better place to ask. Thanks.

Cradle

[conurus]

Yes, true for Contax 645 as well.

[cradle]

For those who needs aperture ring synchronization only, would you provide a chip to suit this purpose (even require an external power supply) which simply stick on the mount adapters? I think many contax N/645 users needs manual aperture control only so that they could use their contax N/645 lens on a wider variety of mirrorless systems such as m43/nex/nx in a more flexible way. I know you no longer provide DIY kit since the complexity of the lens modification. But for mirrorless system we could use an adapter with chip attachment which greatly reduces the complexity. Thanks.

[conurus]

We would be happy to sell you the circuit board. Please email us.

I have a lot of commitments to our other customers but I cannot afford the time to support you or assist you in any integration work for your special projects. You will be responsible for putting it together yourself.

[cradle]

Email has been sent. I hope my thought could come true so that more old lens could be revived in a new way. Thanks.