I’ve been wanting to see how an adapted lens would feel on my G7, but I’ve wanted to wait until I can get one which would do my glass justice. A Speedbooster would be be awesome, but at $479 they are a bit out of my price range.

On the other hand, I have an old 500mm t-mount reflex lens which I’ve played with in the past. It’s a cheap lens, and soft to the extreme, but on occasion I’ve managed to capture a useful picture or two with it. So I decided to pick up a twenty dollar adapter to see what the experience was like. It wasn’t great, as the lens isn’t great, but I can see how it might be fun to try out on occasion.

Because it’s not a lens which speaks to the camera the G7’s focus assist features don’t work with the adapted lens attached. Even so, the electronic viewfinder does a great job depicting what is and is not in focus. I managed to take some photos which were much sharper than when I had the lens attached to my Nikon DSLR ¹. It’s something I may keep in mind if I have any projects which might benefit from it’s unique, and soft, look.

My favorite photo from my tests yesterday is below. I didn’t have the tripod locked in place so I could track the robin as it moved, and that added to some of the softness in the frame. I also didn’t think to turn on burst mode, which was a result of only getting two and a half hours of sleep the night before.