A**R
Not worth the money
I had really high hopes for this adapter. Other than a glowing review from the KEH blog, I couldn’t find much about it online before I made my purchase. I love the Contax G system, I own most of the lenses and have used both bodies. As anyone reading this probably knows, the lenses are absolutely fantastic, and the thought of using them on my Sony digital cameras was very exciting.First the positives: the build quality seems very nice, and the firmware can be updated via Bluetooth, which could yield improvements in the future.Now the bad news:1. The autofocus is slow and inaccurate. Your mileage will definitely vary depending on which body you use, but in general my Contax G1 (a camera notorious for slow and inaccurate autofocus) focuses much faster and much more reliably than this adapter. On my A7III, it is usable in very specific conditions: if you’re outside on a very sunny day and you have the aperture wide open, it will achieve focus ~ 6/10 times. If you stop down the aperture at all, or you aren’t in direct sunlight, it will continuously rack back and forth, and ultimately fail to achieve focus. Keep in mind, what I just described were the absolute best results I was able to achieve. On my A7SII it is completely unusable, achieving focus about 1/30 times.2. The motors on this thing are incredibly loud! Way louder than the Contax G1 or G2 bodies (which are already pretty loud). It isn’t just the volume, it’s the noise itself, it sounds like something isn’t quite right, like gears grinding. I don’t know how else to describe it, but it certainly isn’t pleasant.3. For whatever reason, this adapter is incompatible with video mode. The unit has a little wheel on the side which allows you to control the motors directly and focus manually. In any of the photo modes, you can use the focus adjustment wheel regardless of whether the body is set to manual of autofocus. As soon as you switch to video, the body locks itself in manual focus mode, and the wheel on the adapter does absolutely nothing. Therefore, the only way to shoot video is to switch to a photo mode, focus, then switch back to video and record. I don’t see why this needs to be the case since the adapters manual focus adjustment works in every other mode, regardless of how the body is being told to focus.4. Techart claims that the adapter will tell the camera which aperture you have selected on the lens for metering. This is not the case. Usually, the body believes that the aperture is set to f/6.2, a stop which none of my lenses even have. If you want accurate metering, you’ll have to set the aperture on the lens, and change it on the camera. Not a huge deal, but a pain none the less.5. Updating the firmware is a pain, techart does not provide great info on the process. I finally figured it out after watching a YouTube video with terrible Mandarin to English captions. Here is the process in case anyone is interested: 1. Download the “Techart Update” app. 2. Place the adapter on the camera, but remove the lens. 3. Power on the camera, and set the mode select dial to M. 3. Using the dial, change the aperture setting on the camera to f/90. 4. While holding down the MF/AF selection button (AF-on button on the A7III) press and release the shutter once. 5. Turn the camera off. 6. Open the app, select the firmware you want to upgrade to, and hit update. The update process will take about 10-15 min.I didn’t notice any improvement after upgrading my firmware, but I suppose it’s worth a shot.I apologize for the rant, there’s just so little information on this thing online, I felt it would be valuable to share my opinion in full.I’m conclusion, this thing sucks. The performance ranges from bad to completely unusable. I guess it does provide a pretty authentic Contax experience, even the G2’s autofocus can be infuriating. The one resounding positive here is the lenses themselves, even all these years later they are really stellar! Just as good as modern E mount Zeiss lenses, but for a tiny fraction of the price. Pick up the Fotodiox or metabones manual adapter, they both have their issues, but manual focusing with the help of Sony’s excellent peaking is a joy compared to using this $250 piece of garbage. Best of luck!
Trustpilot
1 month ago
1 month ago
