The Best Adapter for Zf Manual Focus isn’t made by Nikon?

In the ZF Nikon created arguably the best manual focus experience, so why is it so hard to find the right adapter for their own vintage lenses? 

With Nikon’s FTZii you lose almost all of the Zf’s special focus assist tools, and and I had to test 10 different adapter combinations til I found the best solution.

Not one, but two stacked third party adapters, surely not how Nikon intended us to use the Zf?  It’s like that Apple meme - dongle after dongle, adapter after adapter, but unlike Apple I don’t think Nikon will be in the adapter game for long. 

I hope I’m wrong, I do have a wish list for FTZiii, but it’s never coming out.

Lately I’ve been spending an awful lot of time checking AIS Nikkor serial numbers. Vintage Nikkor glass is an affordable (ish) way of getting that manual focus buzz, but I didn’t have the right F to Z adapter.  I tested 4 adapters from Nikon TTartisan, Megadap, and Neewer against the 3 criteria that matter most to me when manual focussing but honestly this is a mess.

Other than the FTZii, none of these other adapters fit F mount glass natively.  TTArtisan is M to Z, Megadap and Neewer are Sony E mount to Z, which then need additional F to M and F to E adapters.

Spoiler: there is no perfect adapter.

Criterion 1: Manual Focus Subject Detection

Manual focus subject detection, where white boxes appear around faces and eyes even when using manual glass on the Nikon Zf. Those boxes turn green after nailing focus under ideal circumstances, meaning you don’t have to zoom in magnify to 200% to confirm focus.

I thought this was a flagship feature of the Zf - and the first party FTZii should work seamlessly, right? 

Nope, FTZii doesn’t show any green boxes for focus confirmation on manual lenses, which started this whole mess, but it does work with TTArtisan’s M to Z 6 bit adapter. You will need a F to M mount dummy adapter first, then green boxes, arrows in the bottom left corner, dot when you’ve nailed focus. 

For the Megadap adapter alone there are no green boxes around faces and eyes when using manual glass, but the Neewer on the other hand?  The adapter alone turns that green LED on. Even though I stack a F to E adapter on top of it, those green boxes still appear with the Neewer. 

TTArtisan and Neewer are in the lead.

Criterion 2: Electronic Rangefinder Focus

Electronic rangefinder focus confirmation.  If you leave manual focus subject detection off, you still have a focus point that can be moved around that screen.  When the focus point is lined up with something that the camera thinks is in focus, it will turn green, and it’s accurate enough that 95% of the time I don’t have to punch in to confirm focus. 

It’s the closest thing to an electronic version of Leica’s rangefinder patch, it’s way more accurate than I thought it would be, unless you’re in a high contrast scene where there are lots of things that could be in focus - say leaves on a tree.  

FTZii?  If it doesn’t have green boxes for eyes and faces on manual lenses, it doesn’t have green boxes for focus confirmation either. 

TTArtisan?  Green boxes for the eyes and face, green boxes for focus confirmation via the electronic rangefinder as well. 

Megadap doesn’t have it, but the Neewer does.

TTArtisan and Neewer are still in the lead.

Criterion 3: EXIF data

FTZii doesn’t look that great with AI Nikkor lenses, it really is designed for F-mount lenses with autofocus motors, but there is one thing FTZii does better than any other adapter.

When you set the focal length and maximum aperture in the menu, FTZii keeps that in the EXIF data, even if it doesn’t have an aperture reading. 

TTArtisan can send the aperture reading, but you have to set it twice - once on the lens, once on the camera, and it does have a focal length adjuster on the side that overrides what’s set in the non-CPU lenses menu, but I find it a bit hit and miss. 

Megadap and Neewer?  Also inconsistent - I can’t seem to change the lens EXIF data to something that’s not 50mm even when setting it in the non-CPU lenses.  If you attach the Neewer to your computer via the included USB cable, there’s supposed to be a text file you can edit to change the focal length… but to do this every time you change lenses is… not optimal to say the least.

So if EXIF data really matters to you - FTZii seems to be the best option, especially if you already have autofocus F-mount lenses in your bag… but it’s not the best adapter for my use case.

For me the Neewer E to Z Pro is my adapter of choice for adapting manual focus F-mount glass on the Nikon Zf. I’m not convinced about the build quality, every time I attach or remove a lens it feels more fragile than I’d like but 6 months in it’s still working? I leave a Shoten F to E adapter attached to it at all times, so I’m only ever changing lenses from the Shoten adapter and not fiddling with the Neewer too much. It gives me all the functionality I want while being slim and low profile. I can live with the EXIF data not being quite right.

Why not TTArtisan? It’s rather notorious for being out of alignment for zone focusing, and varies a lot from lens to lens. The Neewer hardly adds any thickness to the lens and adapter combo, and the F-to-E mount adapter I use is quite accurate for zone focusing.

The one thing the Neewer doesn’t do is turn my manual focus lenses into autofocus ones though, the Techart TZM-02 is the gold standard for now, and if you turn off autofocus the TZM-02 still gives you access to all these manual focus assist tools…

But it is so darn expensive for a third party adapter that can be made obsolete with one firmware update.

What would I want in an FTZiii? 

Well I’d like two versions - FTZiii-A and FTZiii-M, the Auto version to provide autofocus motors and aperture indexing to drive older Nikkor lenses, and the M version for manual glass. Let’s you set EXIF data, subject detection, electronic rangefinder functionality, and you can make the outer ridges look more vintage than the FTZiii-A. 

But I think it’ll never happen.

Nikon ’s own Q2 financial results from 2024 says they sold ~ 410,000 bodies, 650,000 lenses, just under 10% of the total camera market.  They’ll need to continue growing to stay competitive, and all an FTZiii would do is encourage people like me to buy more vintage AI-S lenses, which they won’t make any money on unless they start reissuing vintage lenses…

The lens I want Nikon to remake for the Zf is what I deep-dive into for this week’s video:

Happy shooting everyone, talk soon.

Jack.

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