Introduction
Nikon has made two variations of their FTZ adapter in order to be able to use ‘F’ mount lenses on their ‘Z’ mount mirrorless system. The first version had an ugly tripod foot which embarrassingly got in the way with the Z9 body; it was not very well thought out. The second, improved this design, shaving off the foot completely and giving the adapter a closer to round appearance. (Note, it is not perfectly round, There is a lump on it’s side to house the aperture motor for AF-S lenses. This is annoying because collars etc cannot be added to mount heavy lenses, and they could have simply made a rotatable, removable foot. It seems like these things were rushed products, with the B team working on them). Despite this all, many Nikon diehards are still waiting on an FTZIII which would autofocus all lenses Nikon has made since the 1980s which have screw-driven autofocus. Most of these are AF-D lenses (the terminology was such that these autofocused, and provided distance information to the camera for things like flash photography). Screw driven autofocus lenses are lenses which do not have a focus motor within the body of the lens, and rely on the motor residing in the DSLR camera to physically connect into the lens and move the focusing block within it. AF-S, AF-I, and AF-P lenses all have focus motors intrinsic to the lens.
I assume Nikon considered the potential reduced revenue from sales of Z mount lenses and decided not to develop a proper, all bells and whistles adapter for the market. I think this has been a rather foolish and short sighted strategy from a company that, around the time of the D850, made presentation after presentation about their heritage and how they believed new technologies could combine with old to provide great cameras, and technological solutions. I believe they lost a lot of people who were then free to explore Sony or Canon mirrorless systems, as they’d have to buy a lot of new lenses that they where using on the DSLR bodies anyway if they wanted their full functionality. People are still talking about this years later, and the fact they have not done this so far has only hurt their reputation. Nikon have truly failed to understand the sort of added value something as simple as this could give their brand. It’s not always about making huge volumes of money on each product (although I do think if this was done correctly they could easily make a profit off it. Just simply sell it as the new adapter that does everything and bin the other two - consolidate them.). For me, it’s about creating an unmatched brand value and system that is unrivaled in it’s backwards compatability.
The Rumours Have Started
A new rumour has surfaced via China that Nikon has a working FTZ adapter tested previously, yet never released. Apparently Nikon are gearing up to release this adapter in 2025. This has been further reported by the reputable NikonRumors website, with them stating the obvious about the facts of the matter so far. The chatter on this problem has never stopped from day one. On release of the Z mount system of cameras and lenses there was a large resouding ‘Boooo’ from many Nikon die hards who were not interested in buying new lenses when they already had collection they were happy using already. This noise has remained, and the initial disquite was similar to the single card slot thing that made Nikon bring out version II of their Z6/Z7 cameras. They have done the same thing with these adapters; and to me it seems they are slow at learning these things, or the bean counters should be tied up in a dark room and left to mull over their bad decisions for a few weeks with only bread and water.
Nikon have a history of deep legacy support and a long, rich heritage…and they never stop telling us about it whenever they get the chance. It boggles my mind that they don’t just flesh one out (I’ll bet, as mentioned that they have a prototype of this already) and add huge value to their system and get some excellent far reaching publicity on the internet while at it. (While you are at it Nikon - you need to address the firmware inconsistency across your lineup of Z mount cameras. Most don’t even have 5:4 crop mode in them, and some are missing functions other cheaper cameras have - edit: this needs to be another post I think!).
Some Thoughts
This is certainly not a difficult engineering problem for any competant engineer, less the team of designers at Nikon. I think this has been more about the bean-counters than anything else. There is no doubt in my mind that the type of adapter sought is absolutely viable. There are some areas of consideration:
The proposed adapter has been postulated to draw more power - however I don’t see why. Realistically, the onboard autofocus motors in the Z lenses (or AF-S lenses via the FTZII) draw a power from the battery. It would matter little where that power was used; either in a lens based motor, or an adapter based motor, right?
The adapter would need to be engineered to understand the protocols coming out of the AF-D lenses and be able to accurately do their autofocus ‘stuff’.
Retaining weather sealing would be nice as per the current designs, this could simply be ported over.
Ignore what people on dpreview.com and other internet fora say about this for the most part. They are obsessed with ‘new is better’. They are blinded by it. The place is full of gear heads that couldn’t shoot a competent picture if they tried. It’s the ‘all the gear no idea’ thing going on with most of these fora, for the most part at least. There even seems to be this weird hate about people still wanting to use some old glass. Such is the strangeness of these types of places which are full of negativity. Why does it bother them so much if they would not actually use the proposed adapter if produced?
I think Nikon should have brought out the adapter expected from day one. Nikon have stopped physically producing most of the lenses that this adapter would be used for, however that never stopped Sony from doing something very similar, and absolutely does not displace the added brand value it would bring along to the Nikon ecosystem.
Consider that if the adapter made zero profits for Nikon, they could term it a ‘Halo’ product. Ford lost money on the Mustang for three decades. However, they knew by having it in movies, in showrooms etc that it would sell other products. Nikon need to think about this on a deeper level.
Sony LA-EA5
Guess what. Sony have already done this more than four years ago. Sony used to have DSLRs before they became market leaders in the mirrorless world. Their DSLR, ‘A’ mount, lenses, can be mounted to their ‘E’ mount mirrorless cameras with this adapter. It has support for A mount lenses similar to Nikon’s, which do not have the autofocus motor onboard the lens. They even let advanced functions like eye autofocus be used on certain cameras, and support up to 11 FPS! It’s also noted that Sony’s version works screw driven lenses about as fast as their DSLRs do. The facts are simple: Nikon are just way behind Sony in this metric, they have been simply out classed. Despite having both aperture and focus motors, Sony’s is the same price as Nikon's adapter with just an aperture motor. It's also perfectly cylindrical, instead of having a bump for the aperture motor like Nikon.
Items that could be in a FTZIII
Autofocus support for all G and D type screw-drive lenses (again, this is mainly AF-D lenses)
Full AI lens support. Nikon AI lenses are manual focus and decades old, however Nikon went real lazy here. They only meter in two modes, and they don’t even record the shooting aperture on the FTZI or II in the EXIF. That’s not really difficult to do Nikon, come on…
Removeable tripod foot. I stated the foot either on the FTZI which was later removed in the II. It might be nice to have the option, as per the Sony LA-EA5 adapter
Rotating Tripod Collar. Really useful for vertical shots when using an adapter
Some Favourite Classic Lenses
Top of the list is the 85mm f/1.4D which I’ve previously written about here. Then there is the 135mm f/2D. Then let’s consider this other expansive list, there are many more than this:
20/2.8D
24/2.8D
28/2.8D
28-70/2.8D
28-105/3.5-4.5D
35/2D
35-105/D
50/1.4D
50/1.8D
60/2.8D macro
70-180/D macro
85/1.8D
85/1.4D
105/f2.5 AI
105/2.5 AIS
105/2D
135/2D
180/2.8D
200/4 macro
300/4D
It’s not a short list, and this doesn’t even nearly list all of them that could be brought into full compatibility with Z mount. Why you ask? Is a picture needed? Ok, let’s go modern classic:
Portrait of a Baby Boy. Nikon D700, 85/1.4D. Imagine how cool it would be to use a classic like this on a Z camera with full autofocus, and maybe even eye AF like Sony has done.
Nikon AF-D Lenses Still Work
Some of my favourite old lenses are the AF-D primes. I have my reasons. I love the compactness, the look they produce, and I have some specialist applications for some of them. Take the 35/2D and 50/1.8D. These are spectacularly good lenses for shooting urban night scenes. They produce remarkably unique and defined diffraction spikes (sunstars). The newer 20mm 1.8G for F mount is also very good in this regard. Sunstars in particularly, are something that Nikon has forgotten about, or at least nor prioritised in most of it’s native Z lenses. There is still a case for the old gear for this alone. A good sunstar can make or break a scene if done right. I have other uses too. One big one, is if I want to go light, and use a lens that is dependable, doesn’t have an autofocus motor in the lens to fail at a critical moment and leave me left with a manual focus paperweight during the shoot. I use the 50mm 1.8D a lot when I want to shoot a scene with perfectly straight lines because it is the least distortion of any lens in the nikon system that I know of - even the fancy pants Z mount system 50’s have more distortion in them. You’d be surprized how this can affect faces and it isn’t always correctable. I also grab it for it’s crazy flaring - part of the look and feel the lens imparts on the image - I use it for that too. Then there is the fact it’s softness and spherical aberrations present when shot wide open help to tame skin that’s less than perfect without any post processing required for skin specifically. Another win. We’ve been chasing this sharp wide open lens thing for years and there are applications that it matters for to me, such as the astro component of my shooting. But portraits? No sir! Then there are the classics I have already mentioned, the 85mm f/1.4D and 135 f/2 DC lenses (the latter of which Nikon has no real substitute for in Z land). The former 85mm, is still living on my D810 today and I bring the D810 everywhere because of this (I also love it’s sensor). The 85/1.4D is already as sharp as I need it to be, and has better bokeh and focal plane transitions than the newer G did, which was also a lot slower to focus. Nikon still doesn’t have a long macro lens, again that mantle is still held by the 200/4D which would be a delight to use on the FTZIII with autofocus. The biggest mistake I see so many making is their one mindedness that their way is the only way. They don’t consider what people shoot, or their goals or objectives. They can’t see past that ‘some new lens is sharper’ and that ‘why would you buy a new mirrorless body to shoot old lenses on’. It’s always gotta be this black and white thing and I personally tire of reading it. Take one genre, the wedding market. I’d shot that with AF-D primes for years and I do it because of the look they give me. I want to desharpen some lenses, not sharpen. This is where we go so astray for me in digital land. This sharpening thing is crazy when it comes to essentially portraiture in particular. No one wants to look sharp and digital. They want soft and dreamy, nearly every time. Especially the general public. If this is your audience, don’t worry about wasting over two grand on Plena lenses because it will be totally lost on them. The old stuff looks great as it is, and can be found for a song second hand. Another little cool aspect of owning these is that they are more bomb proof than new lenses with motors. Think about it. There is no AF motor to burn out in these lenses. They are more resilient because of this. Think about when my 24/1.4G motor burns out and Nikon won’t repair it. I’ll have to buy a whole new lens, second hand probably!
There are so many different lenses out there, thousands upon thousands and eventually DSLRs might one day stop functioning. It would be nice to see them survive onward. I also see Nikon stopping making the D850 and D780 soon. This means that the adapter is more viable again in a way, because Nikon will not be producing DSLRs anymore thay can use them. They can go right ahead and bridge that gap by simply making a III FTZ that fixes all this and also sorts out compatibility issues with AIS lenses and more.
Final Thought
Let us hope that Nikon wake up and sort out some seriously low hanging fruit that can be tended to in their Z system in a general sense. There are many things that need addressing that are relatively simple to implement. Regarding the FTZIII, I am still holding out for this happening because I see no reason to change lenses I am perfectly happy shooting with. I will say, I still love using them on my D810 body with no crippling of functions, however options and expanding usability across mounts is always useful to a shooter. Before you sit there and tell me the old ‘Nikon knows best’ thing I’ve read online a thousand times, remember that Nikon has also gotten a lot wrong over the years too. I personally think they should sit up and take notice of the calls for the FTZIII which does what it’s fanbase ask of it. Do you remember like me, Nikon stating in interviews that they ‘listen to their customers’. Now they have a chance to prove that true since the message is loud and clear, rather than paying the loyal fanbase mere lip-service.