Lens Mount Adapters

Konica provided a series of adapters for the use of lenses with different lens mounts on bodies with the Konica AR bayonet. This was necessary as sales argument in the first years after the introduction of the new bayonet, because the Konica AR bayonet lens line-up was still somewhat limited – this was quickly fixed during the following years.

Konica Lens Adapter

Lens mount adapter
Konica Lens Adapter

Konica Exakta Lens Mount Adapter II

Lens mount adapter
Exakta Lens Mount Adapter II

Konica Praktica Lens Mount Adapter 2 AR

Lens mount adapter
Praktica Lens Mount Adapter 2 AR

The adapters are all purely mechanical and contain no optical elements – they consist of a ring which has the Konica AR bayonet on the body side and the respective required lens mount bayonet or thread on the lens side.

With these adapters, no automatic aperture setting by the camera body is possible – when a lens is mounted with such an adapter, the aperture has to be closed manually prior to the exposure. Obviously, no automatic exposure control is possible in this case, the metering has to be done by the match-needle system through a closed aperture.

The mounting of a lens with an adapter thus means quite a loss of comfort, photography is a bit more complicated as when using matching AR lenses. For quick snapshots, this method is not very well-suited. But for once-in-a-while use of exotic lenses or for planned shots this is a usable compromise.

The adapters can be used with all Konica bodies that are equipped with the AR bayonet, with the exception of the internal linkFP-1 – but limited to manual exposure control. A sensible use with the FP-1 is not possible, because this camera does not provide a possibility to manually set exposure controls in normal operation – only in flash mode.

Adapters were available for the following lens mounts:

All of which – apart from the regularly offered M42-/Praktica adapter – are quite rare and difficult to obtain.

Especially the M42 adapter is of interest, as there is a huge variety of good and sometimes very cheap lenses for this mount on the second-hand market. Fish-eye or super-wide-angle lenses, which are not used all too often, are for example a lot easier and sometimes cheaper to obtain in M42 screw mount than for the Konica AR bayonet.

The Konica F bayonet adapter as well as the Exakta adapter have not much relevance today. Lenses for the newer AR bayonet are easier to get and typically cheaper than the older F bayonet lenses and have usually better coatings, so that the purchase of a F mount lens for a newer Konica body does not make much sense. Exakta lenses are more collector items than lenses for everyday use, so that you will be better off with a matching Konica AR lens in most cases.

More pages on Konica accessories:

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