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Konica Hexanon Lens On FourThirds Mount

Henrik Lewander

Category: Hardware, Language: E, cover: HC, pages: 0, year: 2007.

Konica Hexanon Lens On FourThirds Mount

(This article was previously published at Henrik Lewander's Brain Picks - http://blog.lewander.com/2007/07/konica-hexonon-lens-on-fourthirds-mount.html (August 03, 2007). Since this link is defunct, its content is republished here on IBS with the kind authorization of the author.)

How to convert a Konica Hexanon AR 40mm F1.8 lens to FourThirds mount (Olympus, Panasonic etc).

[The above title photo shows the] Hexanon 40mm lens shot with my other Hexanon 40mm lens.

You won't get autofocus and you always have to shoot in aperture priority mode (or manual).
But no adapter is necessary and the lenses are cheap.

[IBS editor's note: While there are AR to MFT and FF to MFT adapters, there's no AR to FT adapter because the 1.83 mm difference in flange focal distance (FFD) is too small and there's not enough room for any adapter.]

Expanded page view

(Collapse page view)

This is how the lens looks before any modification:

Start by removing the three screws holding the back plate (pointed out by the red arrows above).
After removing the back plate you can clearly see the two screws holding the aperture pin (green arrows). Remove these and the pin.

Already at this point it is possible to mount the lens on the camera.
But to make it a tighter fit and perhaps get a bit more contrast, read on.


Above is a soft ring made of paper and thick (~2mm) double sided adhesive tape. Make sure there are cutouts so the aperture ring can move. We don't want the tape to stick to the aperture ring, therefore we add some paper to the edge of the tape:

Paper+tape ring mounted. The red arrow shows the cut to lock the lens on the camera. Green arrows show the cut to let the aperture ring move.

Almost there! Now just make a baffle (red arrow below) out of cardboard/paper to hopefully enhance contrast.


You can try different hole sizes, I used 17mm for this 40mm lens (about the same the Olympus E510 kit lens 14-42mm uses). There should be no corner darkening.


This is how it looks on my Olympus E-510. Sooo small!


Finally, some test shots in full resolution for you to review.

[IBS editor's notw: some photos of this section could not be restored]

Hexanon shot with my other Hexanon:
Portrait at F1.8:
Cilla

There are of course lots of other Konica AR mount lenses. Some are supposed to be harder to convert than others but this page should be a start.

Now if we only could have in body image stabilization and focus confirmation for legacy lenses!
Live view is great for getting accurate focus but it's difficult to shoot anything quicker than a snail.

Update: Olympus has provided IS in the latest firmware for E-3 and E-510 for legacy lenses. Great work Olympus!

Update: As noted by an anonymous reader the red dot on the lens does not line up with the dot on the camera. It is possible with some lenses to adjust the ring with the dot but it can be hard to put it all together again!

Have fun!

P.S.: Here are some other sites about converting Hexanons [to FT]:
gfsnt.no/hexanon by Morten Řen
http://ca.geocities.com/rohonczy/KonicaToFourthirds.html -- Robert Rohonczy [link is dead]
[Link added by IBS editor; very detailed guide in german] digicamclub.de/showthread.php?t=14976 Umbau Konica Hexanon AR 1.8/40 auf Olympus FourThirds

Posted by Henrik

17 Comments:


Anonymous said:

why is it necessary to remove the AE lever?

Henrik answers: Because it would protrude into the camera body and there is no space in a modern Olympus.

Anonymous said:

Can the same be done on Minolta MD lenses?
Is MD similar to AR?

Henrik answers: Yes, but not this easy.

Check out Rokkorfiles.

I suggest you search ebay for adapters, much cheaper.

Peter.Hell said:

Thank you for a splendid instruction.
I just made it with a 50mm F1.7
It's amazing. Wonder why I haven't the seen the 1.7 elsewhere.

Anonymous said: Thanks for this great tip. Following your instructions I modified a 50mm f1.8 witout any difficulties.
However I have 2 questions:
1. To fit the lens the red dot seems uselss and there is some work in fitting the lens. It does not go in smoothly like an Olympus lens.
2. The locking mechanism does not work and the lens is staying there becasue of pressure and friction.
Am I doing something wrong?
Thanks in advance.

Henrik answers:

1. Yes, the red dot will be at the wrong place. On some lenses the ring with the dot can be rotated if unscrewed. This can also put the aperture dot on top. I didn't care about this.
My lens goes on smoothly, perhaps your padding is a bit too thick?

2. Locking works if the hole is perfectly lined up with the locking pin. However enough friction will also work just fine.

Anonymous said:

Following the above mentioned issue with the red dot I opened the silver ring to rotat it and close again to fix the red dot ittue.
Warning to all (at least those who are not really mechanically inclinded):
Do not open the siver ring. You are going to have a lot of trouble with puting it back together after as it did for me and took hours to close it again.

Henrik answers:

Thanks for the heads up, I have added a warning to the main article.

Anonymous said:

I was looking forward to your Lensbaby solution what happend?
Even if it is not complete post something maybe we can help carry out the project.

Henrik answers:

Well, nothing happened. I've just been doing other stuff.
I'll se if I can post something.

Iztokx said: .

hi!
thanks for the article.. I modified hexanons 40/1.8, 85/1.8, 57/1.2 for my lumix L1. It has also confirm focus.

The problem is only with 57mm which cannot bet focused to infinity. It should have a few millimeters distance to camera mount. Perhaps you know if such an adapter exist?

Ciao Iztok

Henrik answers:

Iztok, I have not seen any such adapters for 4/3.

Iztokx said:

oh thanks for your answer. Just couple of days ago i find out what was the problem. Its ok now. I just did not succeeded in completelly removing that diaphragm lever; just bent it under that baffle, and that was thw problem at infinity focus.
It works well now ;)

Arabela said:

Good post.

Anonymous said:

Not sure if anyone is interested but I have available brass rings of the proper inner and outer diameter for these conversions as well as longer 1.7mm screws.

The spacers need to be thinned by a few thousandths of an inch with a file, and the screws will need to be cut to length, but it makes a nice professional conversion.

www.belerionbooks.com/konica.htm [IBS-editor: link is dead]

By the way if you grind the longest lug slightly (the one with the notch in it) the lens will mount with the proper orientation.

Jim