Zhongyi Lens Turbo Adapters version II for Fuji X mount cameras (FX)
The lens adapter, waiting to be opened for the first time and used.
Most people seem to agree that mirrorless cameras are the future, but if you are a working pro or even a keen hobbyist, then you will have a lot of lenses for your SLR or DSLR which you cannot use on your mirrorless cameras. At this point in time, my Nikon’s’ are my work cameras and my Fuji cameras are my toy cameras, my everyday camera that I play with when I am not working. Buying lenses for two systems can be expensive and storing them is a huge pain in the ass.
. I currently have four systems that I use, Nikon digital and film, Fuji digital, and Pentax67 for film. Trying to store and protect your gear in hot, humid climates is a pain. Adding more lenses would be difficult as I am almost out of space
I have tried a Nikon to Fuji adapter in the past and it does work well, but I hated the crop factor. I want my 50mm lens to be a 50mm lens, not a 75mm lens. The ZhongYi Lens Turbo version 2 seems to be the perfect solution for me, it reduced the focal length of the lens by 0.726 magnification and increases the aperture by roughly 1 f-stop. That means I can use some of my favorite Nikon primes lenses at their native focal length and they gain an extra stop of light. Sounds perfect to me, but I was skeptical about the performance though.
The adapter box comes with almost nothing inside except the adapter and some foam. But the adapter is well protected and should arrive at your door in perfect condition.
First impressions of the adapter were “It’s so small and light”
The adapter is small and seems to be a good value for money in my opinion.
The adapter arrived and unboxing it is fairly boring, there is not much in the box and it looks almost identical to a normal lens adapter when you first take it out of the box. The two adapters are almost identical in design but the Zhongyi Lens Turbo ii is slightly shorter and lighter. It is hard to really see a difference between the two adapters until you take the caps of the adapters, and see the glass element inside it, which does all the hard work and reduces the focal length and gives you your extra stop of light. It is basically like a teleconverter that is working in reverse.
Comparing the Zhongyi mitakon Lens Turbo ii to a normal adapter, you can see that it is slightly smaller.
The two lenses are almost identical
The normal lens adapter on the Fujifilm XE3 and the ZhongYi Lens turbo next to it. Notice how you can see the sensor in the normal lens adapter.
When I switch the adapter, you can now see the glass lens in front of the sensor. One added benefit of this is that you can change lens in a dusty environment and your sensor will not be exposed to any dirty.
Physically the two adapters appear to be identical to me, and I am pretty sure that the components are manufactured in the same factory in China but that is not a bad thing. The first adapter I had, worked well for me in the past and its build quality was good, so the fact that the ZhongYi Lens Turbo ii is exactly the same, is a good thing. The glass element in the lens is convex and does protrude a little so you should be a little careful when changes lens or putting the adapter down on the table as you could scratch it or get the lens element in the adapter dirty.
The front Nikon mounts on the lens adapters.
The rear Fujifilm xf mount is made of metal in both adapters.
Before you can use the lens adapter, you need to make sure that you have setup up your camera to shoot without a lens attached to the body. On Fuji cameras that is done in the menus with the option “Shoot without lens” option and make sure to set the camera into manual focus so that you get Fuji focusing aids like focus peaking or digital split image.
Does this lens adapter perform well……to be honest it performs exceptionally well and far exceeds my expectations. I was skeptical in the beginning because most of my experiences with teleconverters have been bad but this time I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the image I was getting. The reduction in focal length is great, it is still not a perfect reduction to the original focal length but it is very close now. My Nikon 24mm AIS lens now behaves like a 24mm lens. The images it produces are sharp, and any distortions or softness that I can find is also present in the shots taken with the lens on a full-frame Nikon body. So as far as image quality goes, this little adapter seems to work miracles.
Trying to get the Nikon 50mm 1.2f AIS lens into focus is very difficult, especially when you have gained another stop of light and your depth of field is even shallower now.
The adapter has no flaring or ghosting to the image. Even when shooting into the sun, things remain the same for the lens.
Some people have reported that the Zhongyi lens adapter can increase the sharpness of a lens, but I never found this to be true. The lenses still render colors and saturation the same but there is no increase in sharpness, or as far as I can tell.
The one thing that I have noticed in the 3D pop of my Nikon 50mm 1.2f AIS lens has increased a lot with the adapter. I am not sure why but images seem to pop just a little more with the adapter and the Fuji cameras.
I expected the lens to add some vignetting to the image, but once again, I was wrong. The only times it did vignette, was when it was in line with the lens native performance. The Nikon 50mm 1.2f AIS lens does vignette slightly when shot wide open.
Shooting with the lens stopped down will help with getting the correct focus. I stopped the lens down to f4 for this shot as I was having difficulty getting focus on the boats. The depth of field was just to shallow for me when shooting at 1.2f
This is also almost no extra distortion added to the lens image.
When shooting with the longer lens, the extra stop of light lets you shoot at a faster shutter speed, which helps when trying to get a sharp image. I shoot this boat with the Nikon 200mm f4 AIS lens.
Now to the most important part for me is the extra stop of light that the ZhongYi Mitakon Lens Turbo ii gives. How does it affect the bokeh and the depth of field? So I have been shooting the adapter on my Nikon 50mn 1.2f AIS lens wide open for a while now and I think I have a good understanding of how this affects the rendering. You do gain some more light, and the depth of field does reduce some more, the bokeh seems to but unaffected to me and the lens characteristics seem to be intact. I love shooting the 50mm 1.2f lens wide open, as it gives an almost soft glow or a pop to the photos and this is still present with the adapter on.
The Nikon 50mm 1.2 AIS lens, shot wide open on my Nikon D3S
The same shot with the Nikon 50mm 1.2 AIS lens, shot on the Fujifilm XE3 and the ZhongYi Lens Turbo version ii. Again the lens was shot wide open. You can clearly see that there is more blur in the shot and more of the scene in the background is melting away.
The adapter can also work with Nikon G-lens which is good, but you will have a hard time controlling the aperture. You basically have two settings, either fulling open or stopped down all the way.
G lens on the adapter is not great because you have little control of the aperture.
My favorite Nikon lens is not the 50mm 1.2f AIS lens, it is actually the 135mm f2.8 AIS lens. This lens has always had some kind of special magic in it on Nikon cameras, but whenever I use an adapter on the lens, it just does look the same. It loses some of it magic on a normal adapter and to be honest, it is the same with the Zhongyi lens turbo. The images are not bad, but there is just something missing with them. This is the only lens that performs worse on the adapter
Focusing the lens on the Fuji cameras is really easy with the focusing aids that Fujifilm gives you. I can nail focusing on the Nikon 50mm 1.2f lens all the time and I am much faster and accurate with this lens than I am on my Nikon cameras.
Focus peaking
Focus peaking makes uses manual focus lens extremely easy to use. I can manually focus the lens much quicker on the Fuji than on the Nikon and I shoot with a film Nikon at least 2 or 3 times a week, so I am not out of practice with using manual focus. Focus peaking just makes it so much easier to use.
My Nikon lens that I use with my XE3
This little adapter has impressed me so much, the image quality is really good, well good is subjective to the lens that you are using, but if the lens is good, then the adapter will not render a worse image. I always carry this adapter with my Fuji camera now. I tend to take my Nikon F2 film camera and the Fujifilm XE3 cameras with me and now that I can share my lens between the two systems, this makes it a perfect setup for me. I can swap bodies and lens and maintain the same focal lengths, I can shoot black and white film and color digital when I feel like it. If you are stepping into the world of mirrorless cameras and you have a lot of old lenses from your DSLR, then you need to buy this adapter. It is slightly more expensive than a regular adapter but it is so much more useful.
Shaun.