{"id":14139,"date":"2021-04-10T16:09:03","date_gmt":"2021-04-10T20:09:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/?p=14139"},"modified":"2021-04-10T16:09:03","modified_gmt":"2021-04-10T20:09:03","slug":"auto-focusing-motorless-a-mount-lenses-on-the-sony-e-mount-cameras-10apr2021-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2021\/04\/10\/auto-focusing-motorless-a-mount-lenses-on-the-sony-e-mount-cameras-10apr2021-update\/","title":{"rendered":"Auto-Focusing Motorless A-Mount Lenses on the Sony E-Mount Cameras \u2013 10APR2021 Update"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Up until last year the only way to auto-focus motorless A-mount lenses on the A7 and higher e-mount cameras was with the LA-EA4 adapter that Sony sold.\u00a0 And it had a translucent mirror built into the adapter to provide autofocus points to control the autofocus of the lens on the camera.\u00a0 This had several difficulties.\u00a0 One was the translucent mirror itself which acts as a beam splitter and wastes 30% of the image light to the autofocus function.\u00a0 And because it uses the adapter\u2019s autofocus system instead of the camera\u2019s, all the advances in autofocus that have accrued over the time that the E-mount cameras have evolved are unavailable when using the LA-EA4.\u00a0 In other words the autofocus is very limited.<\/p>\n<p>But in 2020 Sony launched the LA-EA5 adapter with the ability to autofocus motorless lenses through the camera\u2019s autofocus system and without the beam-splitter in the light path.\u00a0 This was a marvel when it was announced and there was great rejoicing among the owners of old but sharp Minolta and Sony A-mount glass.\u00a0 But because it is Sony we\u2019re talking about, they had to make it a tragedy.\u00a0 They only programmed the adapter to provide this capability for three cameras, the A7R IV, the A1 and the APSC camera the A-6600.\u00a0 I have since attempted several times to contact Sony to determine if they will update their firmware to let this adapter work for my camera, the A7 III.\u00a0 Of course, they have completely ignored my requests.<\/p>\n<p>But there is one other option.\u00a0 If you have an LA-EA4 adapter you can purchase a third-party kit from China to replace the firmware on this old adapter, remove the translucent mirror and use it to auto-focus these motorless lenses with any of the Sony E-mount cameras.\u00a0 Gary Friedman has been an E-mount expert user since the mount was invented and he writes how-to books about their cameras.\u00a0 He has produced a couple of YouTube videos on this subject.\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=9a-NuV3fW4E\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">One demonstrates how to modify the LA-EA4 and install the Chinese autofocus firmware<\/a>.\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Xy4GZURBkF0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The other demonstrates the way both the LA-EA5 and the hacked LA-EA4 focus with various Minolta lenses<\/a>.\u00a0 It is valuable to know that even with the LA-EA5 and a compatible camera the speed of the autofocus is much slower than with E-mount lenses.\u00a0 And the autofocus with the Chinese firmware on the LA-EA4 is very uneven.\u00a0 It starts and stops several times to reach a focus point.<\/p>\n<p>I have an LA-EA4 and after seeing the video I am considering doing the retrofit myself.\u00a0 It costs about $200 which is about the cost of the adapter I think but I am intrigued with the thought of being able to autofocus my Minolta 200mm f4 macro and Sony 135 f1.8 A-mount lenses.\u00a0 I guess that sort of makes me some kind of a fanatic but Sony leaves me no choice.\u00a0 When I buy and install the firmware, I\u2019ll do some tests and post them for the curious.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Up until last year the only way to auto-focus motorless A-mount lenses on the A7 and higher e-mount cameras was with the LA-EA4 adapter that<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,659],"tags":[3002,20,32,1107,2638],"class_list":["post-14139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photography","category-photography-reviews","tag-gary-friedman","tag-sony","tag-sony-a7-cameras","tag-sony-la-ea4-a-mount-to-e-mount-translucent-adapter","tag-sony-la-ea5-adapter"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.4 - 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