Adaptor for Contax N lens

[leica5]

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What would you recommend to use 85/1.4 N lens on SL Camera

Thanks.

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[steppenw0lf]

Not possible.

[darylgo]

There was a conversion process to Canon EOS mount performed by a gentleman in Canada.  I have not seen any recent information on availability.  Once converted the lens could be used with the EOS adapter, maybe, possibly, I've not tried a converted lens with the SL/EOS adapter so this is speculation.  The cost of conversion/adapter would far outweigh the value of the lens and a Zeiss 85mm/1.4 EOS mount might give very near results.  It's too bad that the beautiful Zeiss/Contax lenses hit a dead end with the demise of the Contax brand.  Leica has made an adapter for the Contax 645 lenses on the S body, and surprisingly they performed faster (AF) on the S than they did on the native Contax 645 body.  

 

http://conurus.com/contax/lens-modification-service

[wlaidlaw]

I suspect that would be too many adaptions. I know someone who had a Contax N camera, which died beyond economic repair  and he had two of his lenses converted to EOS by Conurus. The autofocusing result was less than wholly satisfactory and he gave up with them. I think you would have to be very lucky for a Conurus converted lens then to work on the Novoflex AF coupled EOS/SL adapter. The N lenses were often not totally satisfactory with the problem rate on them quite high. It was a bone of contention between Zeiss and Kyocera about the warranty costs on these lenses and at one point, I believe the Zeiss inspectors in Japan were failing up to 75% of the N/645 lenses coming off the production line. They are now a minimum of 13 years old with electronics that were often not reliable even back then. It is a pity because the 17-35mm lens, when it is working well, is a fantastic lens. 

 

OTOH, the Zeiss Contax CX/Y manual focus lenses work beautifully on the SL with the LEM/CONT Novoflex adapter (coded as an R adapter M to access the R lens menu) then Leica M to SL. I will probably buy a LET/CONT adapter in due course to eliminate having to stack adapters but only if it still allows me to access the R lens menu. The SL's focus peaking works considerably better than the LEM/CONT did with my M240 type cameras. The traditional high contrast of the Zeiss lenses mean that the contrast detection on the SL sensor makes accurate focusing very easy. I have the 28-85 and Tele Tessar modular system 300-600-1200mm Contax lenses. 

 

Wilson

[steppenw0lf]

You will need to use a Sony camera, unless this company also releases an adapter for the SL. But it has a price tag.

http://petapixel.com/2015/08/25/fringer-is-the-worlds-first-contax-n-to-sony-e-mount-electronic-adapter/

In the video it looks as if there is some focus hunting - but maybe I'm too pessimistic. At least it has AF.