Z Lens on F Body? I haven't seen adapters to mount a Z lens on an F body. Maybe there isn't enough demand. It would give total compatibility back and forth.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I haven't seen adapters to mount a Z lens on an F body. Maybe there isn't enough demand. It would give total compatibility back and forth.

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

jerryc41 wrote:

I haven't seen adapters to mount a Z lens on an F body. Maybe there isn't enough demand. It would give total compatibility back and forth.

F body too thick.
Z lens would not even operate on F body if there were an adapter with a glass element in it to make it focus.
There would be no aperture control, focus manually would be impossible with the focus by wire lenses.
There just would be no demand at all.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Architect1776 wrote:

F body too thick.
Z lens would not even operate on F body if there were an adapter with a glass element in it to make it focus.
There would be no aperture control, focus manually would be impossible with the focus by wire lenses.
There just would be no demand at all.

Well, I guess that covers it.

Thanks.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

The Z-mount places the lens 16mm from the sensor, this close because there's no room to allow for a flapping mirror inside the body. The legacy F-mount sits miles back at 46.5mm. As well as no electronic communication for focusing these new mirrorless lenses, the Z lenses would perform like having a 30.5mm extension tube, allowing only very close focus and nothing for infinity / general purpose usage.

BebuLamar

jerryc41 wrote:

I haven't seen adapters to mount a Z lens on an F body. Maybe there isn't enough demand. It would give total compatibility back and forth.

There is in fact demand but it's not possible. Total compatibilty? Nikon couldn't make the F to Z adapter with full compatibility let alone a Z to F adapter.

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

BebuLamar wrote:

There is in fact demand but it's not possible. Total compatibilty? Nikon couldn't make the F to Z adapter with full compatibility let alone a Z to F adapter.

leftj Loc: Texas

jerryc41 wrote:

I haven't seen adapters to mount a Z lens on an F body. Maybe there isn't enough demand. It would give total compatibility back and forth.

Not gonna happen.

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

jerryc41 wrote:

I haven't seen adapters to mount a Z lens on an F body. Maybe there isn't enough demand. It would give total compatibility back and forth.

The reason you can use an F mount lens on a Z body is because the adapter moves that lens farther away from the Z sensor which would otherwise be too close to the lens to focus properly. The reverse is not possible. Even if you could mount a Z lens directly on an F mount, without an adapter, it would still be too far away from the sensor to focus properly. As a result, z lenses will never be usable on an F mount.

trinhqthuan Loc: gaithersburg

jerryc41 wrote:

I haven't seen adapters to mount a Z lens on an F body. Maybe there isn't enough demand. It would give total compatibility back and forth.

There is no way to make adapter for Z lens to use on F body.

cjc2 Loc: Hellertown PA

135000+ wasted posts. Go out and shoot Jerry! Best of luck.

Nicholas J DeSciose

Ridiculous

JD750 Loc: SoCal

jerryc41 wrote:

I haven't seen adapters to mount a Z lens on an F body. Maybe there isn't enough demand. It would give total compatibility back and forth.

I think it would help Nikon sell more Z lenses.

It is possible to make such a device however there are optical compromises that must be made.

The technical obstacles were discussed here on UHH recently. The consensus was the the adaptor would degrade the optical quality of the Z lens, by some amount. And it would take Nikon’s technical resources away from developing more Z lenses for what might be a small gain in revenue.

ELNikkor

Trying to make such an adapter like that without sacrificing image quality, would make the adapter far more expensive than a Z body, so, why do it?? Just buy a Z body for your Z lenses, (or vice-versa).

leftj Loc: Texas

ELNikkor wrote:

Trying to make such an adapter like that without sacrificing image quality, would make the adapter far more expensive than a Z body, so, why do it?? Just buy a Z body for your Z lenses, (or vice-versa).

Can’t imagine someone would have Z lenses and no Z body.

JD750 Loc: SoCal

ELNikkor wrote:

Trying to make such an adapter like that without sacrificing image quality, would make the adapter far more expensive than a Z body, so, why do it?? Just buy a Z body for your Z lenses, (or vice-versa).

I’m not qualified to debate technical obstacles. There is no need to debate economics as companies must take the most profitable long term path.

However I can explain why IF it existed a Z2F adaptor would sell more Z lenses.

A new photographer just starting has no lenses so she can go exclusively with the Z (or choose Sony) when building her lens collection.

But there are existing photographers still using F-mount cameras and they may also own a Z-body. But the F mount may still be their primary camera. They can buy all new Z lenses at considerable expense but those lenses can only be used on the Z body. And the Z may not be their primary camera. So those people will continue use the adaptor with existing F lenses. They can use their Z-body with the adapter but that negates some of the advantages of the Z body.

Those people would buy a reasonably priced Z2F adapter that gave them equivalent performance as their existing F lenses. And they would buy Z lenses to replace their F lenses going forward.