Nikon FT-1 Mount Adapter

If you own any Nikon FX or DX telephoto lenses for your other camera bodies, then you must have one of these adapters for your CX format Nikon J/V one or two camera. The crop-factor of 2.7 enables you to take fabulous long tele-photo shots without any loss of aperture or optical quality as one would get by using a teleconverter. I have a 70-300 f4.5/5.6 zoom which, on the V1, becomes an f5.6 810mm lens! The VR works using this adapter and so one can take 810mm shots hand-held with a lens costing just £450: try doing that on an FX body. Fantastic bit of kit. However, Nikon charge a horrendous sum (around £220) for what is nothing more than a lens mount adapter with a pass-through electrical connection for Nikons G series lenses. But it is very well made (all metal) and works beautifully. One word of warning though; if you mount a VR lens on the adapter, it's energized the whole time and not just when you press the shutter release, and so, you must remember to turn VR off at the lens if you normally shoot with the camera switched on all the time, otherwise you'll have flat battery in no time.

Works exactly as expected and gives good results. Autofocus and exposure work well. It is well made although a tad expensive. I don't agree though with reviewers who think there is no loss of light as the image circle from an FX or DX lens is much bigger than required for a 1 inch sensor and hence most of the light is not used. I have recently also bought a 70-300mm CX lens and this gives sharper results, but this could be higher lens quality as well as the smaller image circle.

Alright it's expensive! I put off buying this adapter for a long time because of the price. However, now I've bought it I cant imagine being without it. I've used it with a 300F4 Nikkor and a 40mm F2.8 Micro Nikkor and the results have been amazing! The image quality is simply stunning. An interesting feature when used with the micro Nikkor is an increase in the reproduction ratio. With the lens set at closest focus distance the repro ratio is 1:1 on a DX format camera. But adding in the 2.7x crop that the CX sensor imposes is like automatically enlarging the image even further. I now find myself looking at current AFS lens and multipying the focal length by 2.7 to see what I would get! How about an 85 F1.4, transformed into a 230mm F1.4!! The only caveat seems to be that other manufacturers lens dont work properly with it, even those that offer the latest features on the DX cameras?

I’m glad i bought this adapter works very well very pleased with it thank you.

Recommended to anyone who has a Nikon-1 series camera and some Nikon F-mount (Nikon FX or DX lenses or third-party compatible lenses) As an example, I used it to mount a variety of lenses including a Nikkor 55-micro AIS with a PK-13 extension tube. My Nikon-1 body was then able to meter through this manual-focus lens (something my Nikon D50 camera body had never been able to do). It also worked well with a Nikkor 55-200 AF-S DX and a Nikkor 80-210 AF-D (FX). The latter requiring manual focus as the FT1 doesn't provide a focus-motor. The tripod mount is too small and close to the camera body to accommodate a Manfrotto RC2 QR plate and still have room to rotate and unmount the camera body from the FT1. This is a shame but you can either use the tripod-screw connector or perhaps find a smaller type of plate (perhaps a small Arca-swiss style QR plate might work well?).

Another piece of Nikon kit I just had to have, but unlike most of the other Nikon products I own (which are expensive but do their job well) this one is far, far to over priced for something that really does not work very well and has thrown up quite a few problems with some of my Nikon lenses and even more problems with third party lenses (very high quality Sigma lenses). Do a lot of research on the lenses you own, compatibility and know issues before you purchase this item and don't get stuck with an overpriced paperweight. ALMOST USELESS

The adaptor works with all my lenses apart from my 10.5mm AF DX, but I'm disappointed that it does not support continuous focus, and that the 10.5 has to be on manual focus only. It is robust and well made, and makes my V1 much more useful now I can put my full sized lenses on it. Another down side is that because of the small sensor size, wide angle subjects are difficult when using the FT-1. There is no getting away from that fact, but the adaptor is not at fault. To sum up, I think is is a good but expensive addition to my camera bag. I feel that a price of £120 to £140 would have been about right. As it is I feel slightly gouged by Nikon.

Es fenomenal usar los objetivos de la reflex con mi V1. El salto de calidad es increible. Es un accesorio caro, pero es fenomenal.

This little gem will win your heart should you have older Nikkors in your bag. I have shot over 500 pictures using various AIS Manual, AFD, and AFSG lenses from 11mm to 300mm including the TC-17 Teleconverter with a Nikon 1 V1. All of my older lenses are so much better than the 10-30mm kit lens that most of the time I expect the FT-1 will be on this camera. Here are a couple of items which I discovered that may be helpful as I did not find this information in the Nikon literature and in the case of the 70-200 f/2.8 VR, Nikon support could not answer why this lens was not on the approved list for the FT-1. 1. Motion Snapshot and Smart Photo Selector modes do not work on the Nikon 1 V1 when using the FT-1. 2. The range finder does not work with non-CPU lenses (AIS Lenses) and there is no exif data captured for these lenses. 3. A pleasant surprise is that the the View Finder in the 1V1 is good enough for focusing AIS lenses, even a 50mm prime at f/1.4. 4. It is difficult if not impossible to focus AIS lenses with the monitor even zoomed if hand holding. Tripod live view focusing is great. 5. For AFS, autofocus is very good and manual focus using the range finder is excellent. Exif data is captured by the 1V1. 6. For AFD, there is no autofocus, but the view finder and monitor work well. 7. Now to the 70-200 F/2.8VR, which is not listed as a compatible lens. I saw reference in a Nikon magazine article to this lens being used with the FT-1. It seems that the VR mechanism continues to run rather than cycling on and off based on pushing the shutter release on the camera as it does on my Nikon DSLRs. So I just turn off VR with the switch on the side of the lens and all is well. Of course I must switch VR back on manually if I want it, but this is a lot better than spending over $2000 for the VRII version of the lens! Overall I could not be more pleased with an accessory for my bag as it makes my whole Nikon lens set available to the Nikon 1 system. Shooting at a 35mm equivalent of 1350mm with the 300mm F/4 and TC-17 on the FT-1 at f/6.7 means that I can do descent animal shots with the Nikon 1 system without spending $8,000 for a big heavy telephoto lens. At first I thought Nikon was nuts with the tiny CX sensor, but now I see the brilliance of their design choice. I am 70 years old and to get the kind of telephoto performance in this lightweight package opens up a whole new genre for me as I just could not lug around the heavy lenses and DSLRs in the field. Buy it, you'll love it.....

It works great! I bought Nikon 1 J5 with the intention to use it with my F mount lens to get the 2.7x crop factor. compared to all the 3rd party adapters, it's more expensive, but you get what you paid for because it does not lose functionalities(like auto focus) or speed on all my lenses(14-24 f2.8, 50mm f/1.8, 105mm f2.8 macro and 28-300mm so far). It's especially useful for shooting macro(105mm becomes almost 300mm) and moon(300mm becomes over 800mm). excellent investment!

Worth the price. The only limitation is that you get center point focus only .But then i could use all the existing Nikon glasses on my V2

Meines Wissens als einziger Hersteller bietet Nikon für seine Systemkamera einen Objektivadapter für die eigenen FX oder DX Objektive an. Ja, er ist nicht billig, aber alleine schon die Idee, an den kleinen Nikons (bei mir eine J2) die guten Vollformater einsetzen zu können, ist genial. Dass dann noch die Lichtstärke der Linsen und der Autofokus erhalten bleibt, ist das Sahnehäubchen. Der Adapter fühlt sich sehr wertig an, er besteht überwiegend aus Metall, kein billiger Kunststoff. Sehr gut auch, dass er am Boden eine eigene Stativhalterung in der optischen Achse des Objektivs mitbringt. Was letztlich völlig überzeugend ist, ist die Leistung des Adapters. Eigentlich leistet er selbst nicht viel, außer das nötige Auflagenmaß bereitzustellen. Aber die Bilder, die ich mit beispielsweise mit dem Nikkor AF-S 85/1.8 oder dem Sigma 35 mm 1.4 Art mache, sind hervorragend. Aus den 85 mm wird ein echtes Tele mit 230 mm und 1.8er Lichtstärke, aus dem Sigma eine 95 mm Portraitbrennweite, die auch wegen der beibehaltenen Naheinstellgrenze von 0,3 m absolut makrotauglich ist. Und das mit f1.4! Das Sigma spielt hier seine Stärken wie die hohe Lichtstärke, die Schärfe schon bei Offenblende und das Bokeh richtig aus. Der Autofokus bleibt treffsicher, schnell und leise. Da wünscht man sich eigentlich nur noch, dass die J2 mehr als 10 Mio. Pixel hat. Der Adapter funktioniert mit meinen AF-S Objektiven (neben dem 85er noch das 16-35 mm/f4) genauso gut wie mit Fremdherstellerobjektiven wie dem benannten Sigma oder dem 150er Sigma Makro 2.8 OS, die AF-S ähnliche Fokussiermechanismen haben. Mit den AF-S DX Objektiven wird es auch funktionieren. Alle anderen Objektive lassen sich natürlich auch anschließen, man muss nur manuell fokussieren. Fazit: Wer hochwertige FX Objektive und eine der Nikon Systemkameras sein eigen nennt, sollte sich über die zugegeben nicht ganz billige Anschaffung Gedanken machen. Besonders vor dem Hintergrund, dass vernünftige Nikon 1 Objektive mit Festbrennweite und besseren Lichtstärken nicht gerade zuhauf vorhanden sind. Wer Tele und Makro bevorzugt, hat mit dem FT1 eine gute Möglichkeit, Bilder zu machen, die sonst nicht möglich sind. Bei einem Cropfaktor von 2.7 muss man natürlich auf den Weitwinkelbereich völlig verzichten. Selbst das AF-S DX Nikkor 10-24 bietet nur umgerechnete 27 mm, echten Weitwinkel bekommt man also nicht.