MonsterAdapter and AF support for video (esp. Sony > Nikon 60mm macro)

[bghazzal]

Hello all,

 

I'm thinking about upgrading to a Sony a6700 rig specifically for the advanced AF functions and high-framerate it offers, which could come in very useful for shooting videos of planktonic critters, especially in blackwater / bonfire type settings. So small, erratic and fast, high contrast 😄  
 A situation where pretty much anything will be better than what I currently use, which is manual focus at 30fps...

 

This is where the Sony a6700 comes in,  being something of a hotrod with a lot (too much?) under the hood for video.
But alas - lens options are very limited, especially for macro, and even more so for fast AF macro lenses, the ultimate info/spec killer being fast AF macro lenses supporting high-framerate (120fps) video with good AF performance...
Phew...

 

The Sony G 90mm sounds good (the G series has AF optimised for video according to Sony propaganda) and is even stabilised, but it's a 135mm equivalent on an APS-C sensor, with a long MFD, so too tight and tricky to use for my purposes, a 50mm or 60mm macro lens being ideal.

The native Sony FE macro 50mm, however is definitely not an option, dead in the water for macro video due to poor AF performance (see here)

This leaves us with the unstabilised Zeiss Touit 50mm, which is a nice lens, but offers very little info / feedack on how well autofocus (the lens does have a linear motor) actually performs for video with a6700.

 

Enter the Nikon 60mm macro ?

Looking into blackwater data here and elsewhere, it seems some photographers are succesfully using the famous Nikon 60mm macro (AF-S Micro NIKKOR 60mm f/2.8G ED, to be polite) with an adaptor on Sony cameras - the most common adaptor cited being the MonsterAdapter Nikon F to Sony E mount adaptor (I think 2 versions are out now)

 

However, it is very unclear if this adaptor does support AF in video mode, and if it actually does, how fast it is for handling tracking AF used for video...

It is also unclear whether said adaptor would work for a scenario like Sony aF6700 > monsteradapter > Nikon 60mm (in a Nauticam N100 macro port?), and even less so for shooting video.
 

Today, I contacted a Japanese MonsterAdapter dealer who told me the Nikon F to Sony E mount adapter supported still images only, and is not compatible with video recording.
I do not know if this is true in practice, where things can be a little different than on paper. I'm waiting on an answer from MonsterAdapter themselves.

But it would be really nice to have some experienced-based user-feedback on the subject, from people who have used/are using monster adapters, so I'll try to centralise monsteradapter data for video use.

 

***

 

Has anyone on the forum ever shot video with monster (or similar) adapters? Did AF work, and if so, to what extent?

 

thanks in advance for your input!

 

cheers

ben

Edited 53 minutes ago by bghazzal