NEX 7 & "Stacked" adapters?

[gurtch]

I just sold all my Canon gear, except for the 500mm f4L IS (going on ebay soon). I had purchesed three high quality Voigtlander adapters for Canon EOS: the M42, the contax/Yashika, and Leica R. I have advance ordered a NEX 7. I have a treasure trove of legacy lenses including Nikkor, Leica R, Pentax M42 (and many others, such as Exakta/Topcon, Miranda, Praktina, Canon FD etc). Initially I thought of buying NEX to Leica R, NEX to M42, NEX to Contax etc. Then I thought "I already own adapters to EOS". If I just bought ONE high end NEX to Canon EOS adapter, can I stack them and use all my legacy lenses?This would svae me a lot of $, but any advise on using adapters with manual focus old SLR lenses? The more I think about it, I wonder if the required back focus distances would "add" and not work. Correct? Thanks in advance
Dave Gurtcheff
Beach Haven, NJ

 

[Hosermage]

I'm not sure, but I think stacked adapters should work. An adapted lens should work just like a non-adapted lens (minus the electronic connections). So a M42 lens adapted to EOS should be just like a regular EOS lens, therefore can be mounted to a EOS-to-NEX adapter. I never tried it though, but somehow I get the feelings that it'll work.

 

[gurtch]

Thanks. Just to clarify:
NEX body--->NEX to EOS adapter--->EOS to Leica R adapter---> Leica R lens
Dave

 

[pegelli]

Are all your adapters "glassless"? Then it should work fine. Basically glass-less adapters are just a light tight tube mechanically attaching your lens at the right distance from the sensor. So two on top of each other don't change anything on that principle. There are no electrical contacts and the whole operation is manually on the lens itself (focus,aperture and maybe zoom)
As soon as they have glass elements to allow infinity focus I wouldn't use them. Usually these adapters are not very good and a lot of IQ is lost. It still will work I think, but you'd be dissapointed with the results.

 

[gurtch]

Thanks all. The adapters I have are glassless.
Dave

 

[Bimjo]

"tolerance stack-up" may be the only issue. Each adapter has a manufacturing tolerance ± x. When added together it's possible that all + tolerances could get you to the point that you can't quite focus to infinity.

Not probable, but possible.

 

[s.agar]

These usually have minus tolerances.

 

[Bimjo]

These usually have minus tolerances.

Ok.

 

[Peterm1_Leica]

There is no reason in principle why stakced adapters will not work so long as they are each well made to reasonable tolerances.

Especially with an NEX camera, where you are seeing the image on the LCD in real time, even if they are slightly out of tolerance that may not be an issue - as it would be with a rangefinder camera of course.

In fact have been doing it with my NEX 5. Shortly after buying an NEX camera I bought a moderate quality Leica M to NEX adapter. As it happened I already had an M42 to LTM adapter for use with my Leica M kit, and I had a set of LTM to M adapters. So - by staking 3 adapters I can mount any M42 lens on the NEX. Works fine. Of course as adapters can be had quite cheaply I will probably end up buying an M42 to NEX adapter some time, but not any time soon.

BTW I then went out and bought a Canon FD to NEX adapter as I have some fine old Canon FL mount lenses. As it also happened I also have an M42 to Canon adapter so I can also use those two adapters stacked as an alternate way of mounting my M42 lenses. Again it works perfectly.

In my case I like the arrangement. The three tier stack is fairly small in diameter and appearance-wise it suits the smaller diameter M42 lenses. The Canon stacked adapters are both somewhat larger in diameter and appearance-wise that suits the larger sized M42 lenses. Not that it matters functionally.