Last weekend, I was invited to shoot another burlesque show organized by Cupcake Burlesque, and it was a good test of what the TECHART Pro adapter can do. The adapter is surprisingly fast when autofocusing M glass like my 50mm Sumilux in low light and super sharp. The one issue I experienced was my camera crashing, which makes the adapter a little questionable for critical moments at this time, but thanks to a discussion with the developer, I understand why I experienced the problem, and I’m confident it will get better with time.
From the research I have done, all of the 3rd party adapters can experience crashing, and it comes from an issue with the camera failing to focus. In short, if a lens adapter fails to lock on, the camera can get confused and reboot, but TECHART is on top of the issue with their flash utility that works via Bluetooth (Ver. 1, 2, and 3 all worked progressively better), which uses your phone and is easy to use and convenient. Problems like this are common when creating a product that depends on reverse engineering, but the results are worth the trouble, in my opinion, TECHART already has 3 firmwares available in their update app. I was only shooting with a Sony a7 II, and the final results made me seriously consider selling my M240. When the a7R III is released, I might just be pushed over the edge if the performance gets just a little better. The optical quality and Leica look are there, as are the speed and accuracy too. I didn’t feel that I needed to touch a single photo in my album beyond a little exposure compensation. TECHART just needs to solve the crashing issues.
At this time, I’m considering this a review in progress, and I hope to try the majority of popular M glass out there, and some less popular glass, before coming to a final conclusion. I would highly recommend this adapter to people who own M glass, and I don’t think owners will be disappointed if they aren’t trying to get the adapter to rapidly focus repeatedly while machine gunning a show. Just beware of people selling the adapter on Amazon unless you’re okay with over paying. It’s best to order directly from TECHART at this time.
More images are available in my gallery on 500px but beware some images are NSFW.