Future use of MFT lenses

One of the fun things with the Micro Four Thirds (MFT) format, is the short flange distance (20mm), which enables the possibility of making adapters for a number of formats. There are cheap, abundant adapters for many legacy formats, e.g., Nikon F and Pentax K, to name a few.

When MFT becomes legacy

However, the flip side of the coin is that some day, inevitably, MFT is also going to become a legacy format. What happens with your gorgeous, and expensive, MFT lenses then?

Let's say that the worst case scenario is that, due to competition, the MFT system loses so much volume that it is abandoned by Olympus and Panasonic. It doesn't seem likely now, but stranger things have happened.

You can still use your old cameras and lenses, of course, but at some point you will want a newer camera, due to new features and better image quality. Can you still use your MFT lenses on some camera from another system?

If Samsung NX becomes dominating

The Samsung NX format is one of the competitors in the mirrorless system category. Let's say this format becomes dominating. Can you use your old MFT lenses on this format through an adapter?

In short: No. It's not possible. The Samsung NX format has a longer flange distance (25.50mm), meaning that even if you made a very short adapter, the MFT lenses would not be able to focus to infinity. You could only use them as short focus macro lenses. Which is not very useful.

If Sony E becomes dominating

The Sony E format was introduced for their new NEX series. It has a flange distance which is 2mm shorter than the MFT format. This is good news, because 2mm, while pretty short, is probably enough to make an adapter for using MFT lenses on Sony E. The Sony E format also has a wider flange diameter, which makes it easier to design an adapter.

However, the MFT lenses are pretty useless without the possibility to operate the focus and the aperture. And both are operated electronically, controlled by the camera. So an adapter must have the relevant software to interpret the Sony E signals, and translate them into something that the MFT lenses understand.

This kind of electronic communication might sound easy, however, it is probably far from trivial. And at best, your autofocus would probably be very poor, both the speed, and, possibly, also the accuracy.

For a comparison, let's consider the Canon EF system. There are adapters for using Canon EF lenses on MFT cameras, but none of them can control the aperture or the focus. So the probability of getting future adapters that provide this feature for MFT lenses seems pretty slim, given that there are many magnitudes more Canon EF lenses out there than MFT lenses.

Conclusion

The conclusion is that if the MFT system is abandoned, your lenses are more or less useless.

On the other hand, there are some rumors now that the modular Ricoh GXR system will include a Micro Four Thirds mount/sensor module. If launched, this will enable mounting a MFT lens to the Ricoh GXR camera, with an adapter mount/sensor module.

Update December 2010

Since I wrote this article, an adapter for using MFT lenses on Sony E cameras (NEX) has actually emerged.  However, since it has no electronic contact, it can not control neither the focus nor the aperture.  So you're stuck with a focus around infinity, and the max aperture.  You can, however, use it with the Cosina Nokton 25mm f/0.95, which is a completely manual lens, with a mechanical focus ring, and a mechanical aperture ring.

Register distance

The register distance, also referred to as the flange focal distance, is the distance between the lens mount, and the film plane. Modern cameras don't use film anymore, so the film plane is in fact the sensor plane.

SLR cameras, with a moving reflex mirror behind the lens mount, need a fairly long register distance. The reason why Micro Four Thirds cameras can be made more compact than SLR cameras, is that they don't need the reflex mirror, and can have a shorter register distance.

A lens mount with a short register distance can be considered a universal mount, since it is possible to create adapters for mounts with longer distance. Micro Four Thirds is such a mount. There are adapters for a number of different formats, e.g., Nikon F and Pentax K.

For comparison, here is the register distance of various formats:

Samsung NX Mini	Very short
Pentax Q	9.20mm
Nikon 1	17.00mm
C mount	17.526mm
Fujifilm X	17.70mm
Sony E (NEX)	18.00mm
Sony FZ	19.00mm
Leica L (T and SL)	19.00mm
Micro Four Thirds	19.25mm
Hasselblad XCD	20.00mm
Samsung NX	25.50mm
Fujifilm G	26.70mm
Leica M	27.80mm
Konica Hexar RF	28.00mm
Olympus Pen F	28.95mm
Contax G	29.00mm
Contax RF	34.85mm
Four Thirds	38.67mm
Konica AR	40.70mm
Canon FD	42.00mm
Minolta MD	43.72mm
Sigma SA	44.00mm
Canon EF	44.00mm
Minolta AF/Sony Alpha	44.00mm
Pentax K	45.46mm
M42 screw	45.46mm
Contax/Yashica	45.50mm
Olympus OM	46.00mm
Nikon F	46.50mm
Leica R	47.00mm
Contax N	47.00mm
Arri PL	52.00mm
Oct-19	61.00mm
Mamiya 645	63.30mm
Pentax 645	70.87mm
Hasselblad 500	74.90mm
Pentax 6x7	84.95mm

The new Samsung mirrorless NX format has a longer register distance than Micro Four Thirds. However, the Samung format still has a shorter distance than most relevant formats, e.g., Leica M, so that it is possible to create adapters just as easily as for Micro Four Thirds.

On the other hand, the Samsung NX has a register distance about 2mm shorter than Leica M, which may be why Novoflex has not yet announced an adapter for it. 2mm may be too short to make a quality adapter.