conurus

mphaha · Joined: 26 Jan 2010 Posts: 3

I just saw the announcement for the new EOS/NEX adapter with autofocus. I see it is only enabled for newer (>2006) EOS lenses. Does the adapter work with converted Contax-N lenses ?

conurus · Posted: Sat Nov 17, 2012 9:52 am Post subject:

Unfortunately Contax N lenses converted by us will only work in manual focus mode. Autofocus is disabled.

Llew21 · Joined: 11 Jul 2012 Posts: 3

Why is this? It's a bit inconvenient since I don't own any Canon lenses!

conurus · Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2013 4:03 am Post subject:

Our apologies but before we released AF we tested a good variety of lenses. Some of them autofocus very accurately but some others would sometimes do so inaccurately on NEX, even though they work perfectly fine on EOS. We had no choice but to disable autofocus for them, because they don't actually work.

ManWearPants · Joined: 18 Feb 2010 Posts: 74

Bo-Ming,

1) Are all Contax N lenses facing the same AF problem when using metabone or just a few? Are there any that works during your testing. I am having Contax N17-35 and 85 only. So if it works for these 2, will you consider enabling the AF for customers who are aware of the issue?

2) With the announcement of A7/A7R, will you be testing the Contax N AF on these metabone adapters ? Maybe they will work for full-frame systems?

3) I noticed you removed the NEX link from your home page. Does this mean that you are no longer involved in this project?

conurus · Posted: Thu Oct 17, 2013 1:09 am Post subject:

Hi,

Thanks for your question. Here is the latest update on the Metabones EF to E Smart Adapter.

With adapter firmware version 18 (May 2013), autofocus has been enabled for NEX-5R and NEX-6, for all lenses with distance information support (which includes all Contax N lenses) even though f/1.4 lenses such as your Planar 85/1.4 may still not focus accurately. If you have an older firmware version please contact for a firmware update. We have found the NEX-5R and NEX-6 to have an improved AF algorithm over previous models which makes accuracy with legacy lenses designed for phase-detect DSLRs much better than before, and also Metabones' own AF accuracy has improved.

By this time, Metabones is much better known than Conurus, and by a huge margin (judging by e.g. Alexa rankings). There is no point linking from a little-known site to its much better-known sibling. Pretty much, nobody comes to conurus.com for the NEX stuff.

ManWearPants · Joined: 18 Feb 2010 Posts: 74

The phase detect AF algorithm is important to Contax N lenses. Does this mean:

(1) We can expect Contax N lenses on the A7 to AF even better since it is using 125 AFP compared to the 99 on NEX 6, and

(2) We may not be able to AF at all on the A7r since it does not support phase detect AF.

conurus · Posted: Thu Oct 24, 2013 5:48 am Post subject:

At the time of writing, the Metabones EF to E mount adapter does not make use of phase detection AF. NEX-5R and 6 have superior AF accuracy for all adapted DSLR lenses even when only contrast detect AF is used. We have not tested the A7 or A7R yet since it is very new, but it would be very unlikely to perform worse than older models in this regard.

ManWearPants · Joined: 18 Feb 2010 Posts: 74

I have used the Metabone v3 on A7 with Contax N17-35 and N85. They both work after a 2 sec noisy focusing hunt. This is excellent!

There are now a few similar adapters which I believed to be reversed engineered from Metabone's.

Will there be further features to distinguished Metabones from wannabes?

Will there be further development made to Contax N firmware (not Metabone) . These firmwares were developed for Canon. Surely Sony must have something that can be added to the firmware.

conurus · Posted: Wed Jan 08, 2014 2:50 am Post subject:

The Metabones EF to E Smart Adapters have the unique "Advanced Mode" that to the best of my knowledge is not available anywhere else. In Advanced Mode you get a number of extra features such as automagnify by just turning the focusing ring, indication of focal length on the LCD as you zoom, flicker-free iris changes on VG and FS series, auto-iris on VG and FS series, and distance infomation display on VG and FS series.

These features have been around for quite some time. The firmware has proved itself to be stable and there have been no changes for almost 5 months.

For Contax N there have been no firmware changes for over a year.

That doesn't mean our firmware development has stopped. Rather, most of what can be done has been done and there is very little remaining to work on.

ManWearPants · Joined: 18 Feb 2010 Posts: 74

How does one get into the advanced mode mentioned above?

rimmy · Joined: 04 Jan 2014 Posts: 16