BEFORE YOU READ ON – THIS APPEARS ONLY TO BE A PROBLEM WITH AF CONFIRM ADAPTERS USED ON THE FOUR THIRDS to MICRO FOUR THIRDS ADAPTER – THE OLYMPUS OM-FT ADAPTER WORKS FINE.
I finally received my Panasonic Four Thirds to Micro Four Thirds adapter last week and it works very well indeed for Four Thirds lenses and I was even surprised that the ZD 50-200mm SWD lens even activated the MF assist automatically on rotating the MF ring even though it’s a SWD lens and not a focus by wire lens – so great news there.
BUT!!!
When using this adapter and then using a Four Thirds adapter to another lens system as well – eg. Olympus OM – the Panasonic GH-1 works for about 5 secs then the screen blacks out and gives the error message – ‘check lens’, even though the menu item, Shoot w/o lens = ON.
This is a real pain and hopefully will be fixed with a firmware update.
HOWEVER, there is a hack around this – press one of the arrow buttons on the rear EXCEPT the AF button (eg. WB button) and the EVF comes back to life and you can take photos BUT you cannot do MF assist even by pressing the AF button.
THUS, at this stage if you have a non-Four Thirds lens to adapt to the GH-1, you should not rely on using the Four Thirds adapter as an intermediary adapter to an AF-confirm adapter.
You CAN use your Olympus OM to Canon EOS adapter and mate that with a Canon EOS to MFT adapter, and you can even use a Canon tele-extender in the middle (can’t always do that on a Canon even!).
OR, you can buy the Olympus manufactured Olympus OM to MFT adapter.
Post script:
There are more thoughts on this error which suggests it has to do with the lens mount lens release stud’s interaction with the lens adapter – see here.
will the panasonic four thirds 14-50mm f2.8 lens work with my GH1 using the panasonic mount adapter? Will Nikon lenses work with it? Thanks, and great site-
14-50mm lens should work fine in AFS mode but not in continuous AF mode. It will have noisy AF in video.
I suspect you may need to use a MFT to Nikon adapter for your Nikon as a Four Thirds to Nikon adapter may not work with the GH-1.
Ehm, unfortunately Panasonic Leica 14-50mm F2,8-3,5 won´t work other way except manual.. its probably cause they are from time, when Panasonic didn´t tought about creating micro 4/3. Later lens works with AFC.
http://panasonic.jp/support/global/cs/dsc/connect/g1.html
Its compatibility list for G1/GH1.
Good adapters has cameraquest and Rayqual. Novoflex adapters are quite somewhat usable too.. (but can´t recommand them, rlly..).
Yea and Olympus has its own micro 4/3 to Olympus OM adapter.. and pretty expensive.. 🙁