Fuji X-Pro1 shooters: dust off your M-mount glass, and get ready to celebrate!
posted Friday, May 25, 2012 at 5:47 PM EDT
When Fujifilm debuted its new Fuji X-Pro1 mirrorless camera last spring, the company promised to offer mount adapters for the new X lens mount, as well as a variety of dedicated X-mount optics. Now, the company has made official the first of the mount adapters, with the launch of its M-mount Adapter.
The new M-mount adapter allows use of a wide variety of third-party lenses on the Fujifilm X-Pro1 body, from manufacturers including Carl Zeiss, Leica, Ricoh, and Voigtländer. An official compatibility chart can be found on Fuji's website, and at the current time lists some 53 lenses whose compatibility with the adapter has been confirmed.
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Fujifilm's M-mount adapter allows use of historic glass from Leica, Zeiss, and others on the X-Pro1 camera body. Photo provided by Fujifilm North America Corp. |
Use of the adapter with the X-Pro1 requires a firmware update, which will be provided this June, alongside availability of the adapter itself. The adapter's construction is largely of aluminum, with a stainless still finish for the M-mount itself. Its design includes electrical contacts that allow the camera body to recognize that the adapter is in use, and a button that allows you to call up the Mount Adapter Setting menu to select a different lens focal length, as well as settings for distortion, color shading, and peripheral illumination correction. Up to six lenses can be registered in the camera body, making light work of changing between multiple M-mount lenses. The adapter weighs 2.3 ounces (65 g), and has dimensions of 2.3 inches (53 mm) diameter by 0.6 inches (14.7 mm) depth.
Pricing for the M-mount adapter is set at around US$200, with availability from June. Interestingly, the product bundle also includes a resin gauge for testing your own M-mount lenses to confirm compatibility, although Fuji cautions that a positive result from this gauge is not a guarantee of compatibility.
Press Release
Fujifilm Announces M-Mount Adapter For X-Pro1 Interchangeable Lens Digital Camera System
Valhalla, N.Y., May 24, 2012 – FUJIFILM North America Corporation today announced that it will release an M-Mount Adapter for the FUJIFILM X-Pro1 interchangeable lens digital camera system, specially made to enhance the experience of taking photos with the professional X-Pro1 digital camera. The all new M-Mount Adapter is designed to expand the lens selection of the FUJIFILM X-Pro1 interchangeable lens digital camera system, and give photographers a wide range of shooting capabilities.
“Since the introduction of the FUJIFILM X100, Fujifilm has made a commitment to expanding the functionality of the X-Series, and today we are very pleased to offer customers a premium accessory that they can truly be excited about – an M-Mount Adapter for the FUJIFILM X-Pro1,” said Go Miyazaki, division president, Imaging and Electronic Imaging Divisions, FUJIFILM North America Corporation. “We listened very carefully to our customers about their desire for an M- Mount for the FUJIFILM X-Pro1, and we are proud to announce that this accessory will be available soon for everyone.”
Precision Made M-Mount Adapter
Similar to the FUJIFILM X-Pro1’s exacting design standards, the precision made M-Mount Adapter is engineered to deliver superb results for discerning photographers.
The M-Mount Adapter is comprised of three parts: an aluminum mount for the body, a stainless steel mount for the lens, and an aluminum central tube. This construction enables an accurately-maintained distance of 27.8mm from the lens mount to sensor, which is crucial for delivering high quality and high resolution images.
The camera side of the M-Mount Adapter features an array of electronic connections that automatically pass information to the FUJIFILM X-Pro1 body based on pre-registered lens profiles. With firmware version 1.10 or later, this information is transmitted by pressing the Function button on the side of the adapter, which allows users to access the M-Mount Adapter Settings menu on the rear LCD.
While attached, the M-Mount Adapter still allows users to enjoy the benefits of the FUJIFILM X-Pro1’s extraordinary Hybrid Multi Viewfinder. The Electronic Viewfinder (EVF) and LCD monitor both offer a 100% field of view, and the Optical Viewfinder (OVF) displays a bright frame corresponding to the focal length in use.
M-Mount Adapter Provides Ultimate Control
The FUJIFILM M-Mount Adapter provides ultimate control by allowing users to create and fine tune lens profiles through the X-Pro1’s Mount Adapter Settings menu. This menu allows X-Pro1 users to profile up to six lenses. There are four pre-sets for 21mm, 24mm, 28mm and 35mm lenses, plus two optional settings for additional optics.
With the Fujifilm M-Mount Adapter attached, profiles can be user-defined, based on distortion, peripheral illumination and color shading corrections.
Three levels of distortion correction are also available to combat barrel distortion on wide-angle lenses, and pincushion distortion on telephoto lenses. Users can select from Strong, Medium or Weak correction, or simply turn any correction off.
Peripheral illumination controls the amount of darkening at the four corners of an image. Eleven levels of correction can be applied from +5 to -5 (including “0”) with users given the choice of darkening the corners of the image to emphasise a central subject or lightening edges for more even illumination across the frame.
Finally, color shading correction allows each corner of the frame to be color corrected to combat any shift in color between the center and edges of the frame. Corrections can be made to red/cyan color shading and blue/yellow color shading from -9 to +9 relative to the green channel.
FUJIFILM M-Mount Adapter key features
- Three-piece aluminium and stainless steel construction
- 27.8mm lens mount to sensor distance
- Electronic connections and Function button
- Compatible with Hybrid Multi Viewfinder
- Lens profiles and corrections available through Mount Adapter Setting menu (firmware version 1.10 or later must be installed for using above features)
The M-Mount Adapter will be available in June 2012 for $199.99.
About Fujifilm
FUJIFILM North America Corporation, a marketing subsidiary of FUJIFILM Holdings America Corporation, consists of five operating divisions and one subsidiary company. The Imaging Division sells consumer and commercial photographic products and services including film, one-time-use cameras, online photo services and fulfillment, digital printing equipment and service. The Electronic Imaging Division markets consumer digital cameras. The Motion Picture Division provides motion picture film, and the Graphic Systems Division supplies products and services to the printing industry. The Optical Devices Division provides binoculars, and optical lenses for closed circuit television, videography, cinematography, broadcast and industrial markets. FUJIFILM Canada Inc. markets a range of Fujifilm products and services. For more information, please visit www.fujifilmusa.com/northamerica, or go to www.twitter.com/fujifilmus to follow Fujifilm on Twitter. To receive news and information direct from Fujifilm via RSS, subscribe at www.fujifilmusa.com/rss.
FUJIFILM Holdings Corporation, Tokyo, Japan, brings continuous innovation and leading-edge products to a broad spectrum of industries, including electronic imaging, digital printing equipment, medical systems, life sciences, graphic arts, flat panel display materials, and office products, based on a vast portfolio of digital, optical, fine chemical and thin film coating technologies. The company was among the top 16 companies around the world granted U.S. patents in 2010, and in the year ended March 31, 2011, had global revenues of $25.8 billion*. Fujifilm is committed to environmental stewardship and good corporate citizenship. For more information, please visit www.fujifilmholdings.com.
* At an exchange rate of 86 yen to the dollar.
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