Incomplete Compatibility
By Andrew
Rated 3 out of 5
Date: 2025-11-14
This Review Attempts To Be Complete, And Has Multiple "parts" (in A Single Review). Kind Of Like, The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly.
The Good:
Original Generation Bronica Zenzanon Lenses And New Generation Zenzanon-PE Lenses For The Bronica ETR / ETRS / ETRSi Cameras -- Are "supported": You Can Mount Them On This Adapter. There Is Not Any Significant Wiggle. No Apparent Light Leak. (I Just Received And Have Had About 24 Hours So Far To Test.) That Is As Much As The Adapter Provides.
The, Sort Of Bad, But Okay, Well, You Didn't Pay Many Hundreds Or Even Thousands Of Dollars For An "intelligent" Adapter:
To Use The Lens At Any Other Than Wide Open Aperture, You Must Operate In "stop Down" Mode, Which Is Driven By The Design Of These Lenses, And The Fact That This Is A "dumb Adapter" [which Presumably Applies To ALL Variants Of Fotodiox Adapters For Any Bronica Model -- Whether ETRSi / "ETR-mount" (6x4.5), SQ / "SQ-mount" (or S-mount?) (6x6) Or GS / "GS-mount" (6x7)]. That Is Because The Bronica Cameras (all Three Medium Formats Across The Various Generations) Used A Combination Of Mechanical Pins/levers And Electronic Contacts To Control The Lenses. So, To See Your Depth Of Field -- AND To Take Your Photo -- You MUST Engage A Spring-loaded Sliding Mechanical Control On The Outside Of The Lens ... WHILE Metering And Also WHILE Taking Your Photo. (This Is Based On Experimentation: No Instructions Were Provided At All In The Box With This Adapter.) So Far, OK, This Is Not Really The Fault Of Fotodiox (given The Price Point For A "dumb" Adapter.) So Much For Ease Of Use (if Your Camera Is Not On A Tripod Or Similar). So Much For Your Lens Remaining Stable During An Exposure Time That Exceeds, Say, 1 / Focal Length (or Some Multiple) Of The Lens. I Suppose Gaffer Tape May Be A Solution On This Count.
In Contrast, In Use On The Matching Bronica Camera, The Camera Body "sends" The Right Mechanical (or Electronic, I'm Not Sure) Control To The Lens At The Moment Of The Shutter Being Pressed, To Stop The Lens Down To The Set Aperture. It Also (presumably Electronically) Senses The Set Aperture For Metering Before The Photo Is Taken.
Note That A Sufficiently "intelligent" Adapter Would Likely Be Ridiculously Expensive (many Thousands Of Dollars Due To High Cost Per Item Sold): Fotodiox Or A Competitor Would Have To Work Out The Electronic Signaling (for Metering) And The Mechanical Linkages (for Image Taking) For Both The Given Bronica Series (ETR V SQ Vs GS) AND ALSO For The Various D/SLR And Mirrorless Cameras. That Would Be A Herculean Task. The Bronica Market Share (especially Now, Perhaps 25 Years After They Went Out Of Business) Is Relatively Tiny. (Compare And Contrast With Canon EOS EF-mount Lenses...)
The Ugly -- Which Is The Incomplete Compatibility To The Bronica Lens __system__ (in My Case ETRS):
TLDR: Bronica Lens Accessories (teleconverters And Extension Tubes) That Mount To The Rear Of A Bronica Zenzanon Lens CANNOT Be Mounted To This Adapter. Presumably This Is True Across The Board For ALL Fotodiox Adapters, No Matter Which Bronica Mount You Are Looking At.
Details On This Part Of The Review...
Back In The Day, I Had A Full System -- Including A 1 .4x Teleconverter And Extension Tube/s (to Go With The Macro Lens). Both These Categories Of Lens Accessories Work/ed Great Between The ETRS Body And The Appropriate Lenses In My Set Of ETRS Lenses. But, They CANNOT Be Used At All. You Cannot Even Push Them All The Way Into The Adapter And Thus You Cannot Turn Them To Lock Them (via The Bayonet Mount).
The Issue Is That Each Of These (a Teleconverter And Multiple Extension Tubes Of Fixed Lengths) Have Additional Mechanical Pins / Linkages On Their Back Surfaces That Fotodiox Has Not Accounted For. No Void Or Grooves In The Female / Front End Of The Fotodiox Adapter For These Added Pins Means You Cannot Push The Item In To Begin The Bayonet Mounting Process.
To Me, That Suggests They Looked Up The Spec For The Rear Of The Lenses, But Didn't Investigate The Spec For The Class Of Accessories That Mount Between The Lens And The Original Camera Body. That's Pretty Disappointing And A Sign Of Engineering Laziness -- Incomplete Research Before Bringing The Product To Market.
If You Do Not Have Any Of These Behind-the-lens (official Bronica Products), And Don't Plan To Ever Have Them (or At Lease Use Them Adapted) Then This Limitation Is Not Relevant To Your Use Case.
Now, I Have To Decide If I'm Going To Keep Or Return. I Will Have To Test My Lenses On My Mirrorless (I'm Using F-mount As An Intermediate Since It Has A Long Flange-focal Plane-distance) To Decide Whether The Optical Quality Of These 1980's / 1990's Lenses (all Purely Spherical, With Good Multicoatings, Designed For 6x4 .5cm Film) Are Worth The Trouble.
Good Product
By Ronald D.
Rated 5 out of 5
Date: 2021-07-08
I am considering the version with the tilt. This item is well made and works well. I hope the tilt function will add a capability that i presently do not have. Makes me happy to be able to use my Bronica lenses. I am a bit of an equipment nut and enjoy good products. If someone made a good digital back for my Bronica i would be very interested.
