11Jan Sony a7s LA-EA4 A-mount adapter
You might have heard on the podcast that I’ve been hitting the pawn shops and playing around with older AF Minolta glass on the Sony a7s. The thing that makes it possible is the Sony LA-EA4 E-mount to A-mount adapter. Sony A99 owners have been enjoying older Minolta glass for a while now and with this adapter, a7s owners can do the same. There are a lot of great Minolta lenses out there and the used price makes them an attractive option.
Like any flange adapter, the Sony LA-EA4 takes advantage of the short flange distance. In this case that extra space is used to cram in a driver motor, an SLT mirror, and an upgraded AF system. The adapter will set you back about $325 and provides support for all of Sony’s A-mount lenses as well as older Minolta and Minolta/Konica lenses that require a camera body based focus motor.
Build quality on the Sony LA-EA4 is so so. The lens and body flange are metal, but everything else is made out of plastic and you have be very careful not to touch the SLT mirror when you are attaching it to your camera. Sony has included a case with the adapter and you’ll probably want to store it in that if the adapter is rattling around in your camera bag. It really doesn’t feel like it’s a very tough item.
In practice, it seemed to work pretty well with the Minolta lens I’ve tried at pawnshop counters. The Minolta 50mm f1.4 was very responsive, as was the Minolta 28-70mm f2.8
. The adapter is a bit on the loud side and some people have reported that the adapter’s focus speed is noticeably slower than native e-mount lenses. I haven’t had a chance to play with any E-mount glass yet, but the Minolta lenses I’ve tried using this adapter much faster AF speeds than adapted Canon glass I’ve tried on the a7s.
I ordered a few sub $200 lenses on ebay. When they show up, i’ll let you know how they work out.
January 11th, 2015 at 5:49 pm
Please do. I have been getting varying reports. I have a Sony A6000 and I have yet to get the older LaEa2 adapter. Some people have mentioned that the auto-focus is noticeably slower, but they never specify if they mean just a little but less responsive, or if they can go make a coffee down the street, walk back, and THEN it will finally lock on.
January 30th, 2015 at 12:27 am
Overall, the LAEA4 works pretty well with Minolta legacy glass on my A7R and NEX7. No complaints about the AF speed. In some cases, I found the PDAF on the adapter focuses faster on the A7R. However, one big issue I have with the LAEA4 is that it seems fragile and very finicky. I had one die on me — refuses to AF after two months. Sent back to Sony for repair a couple of times but still broke after a short while. Got a replacement, and it’s been buggy — some lenses it AFs beautifully, and some it just refuses to work. Tried it on my new A7S, and it didn’t AF at all… this was in the middle of a commercial photoshoot I was doing. I think Sony has got some stuff to work out on the LAEA4. I don’t think it’s ready for the big time.
February 1st, 2015 at 3:34 am
Sean thanks for the info. Im on a hair trigger here whether or not to buy this adapter and a 24/2 zeiss to go on my A7s (which I still havent used any AF lenses on yet).
Your thoughts?
April 25th, 2015 at 9:08 pm
Sorry, for the ultra-late reply, @devtank. Did you get the LAEA4 after all? Hope it’s working out well for you. I’m chucking my replacement after 1.5 months — it’s screwed up again. It doesn’t focus properly.. i.e. it locks focus, but the resulting snap is out of focus (even after the green dot and beep sound to confirm focus). Not a back-focus problem, as it happened with all my other Minolta lenses. Had to use manual focus to sharpen my shots, but that kinda defeats having the LAEA4 in the first place.
When I switched to my E-mount lenses — the problem went away. Focused beautifully.
Now I’m stuck with an expensive paperweight. Am fast developing a love-hate relation with Sony.
Hope you have had better luck.
June 2nd, 2015 at 12:12 pm
Hey Sean,
I am experiencing very similar out-of-focus issues with LAEA4 + A7m2 + SAL135F18Z Zeiss 135 1.8 lens. The camera confirms focus but the 50% of the time, they are out of focus and unusable. This is really annoying because I was using the very same lens on my A99 and I know that it has incredible focus accuracy and sharpness. I am checking various forums and sadly noticed that there are more people that has the same issues with LAEA4.
June 2nd, 2015 at 7:51 pm
I’ve been using it with the Minolta 50mm f1.4 for a few months now and i’ve had pretty decent AF performance, around 80%. I wonder if the problem is only related to certain lenses.
July 15th, 2015 at 9:45 am
have you guys figured out any way to fix this? i did a shoot the other day and was extremely disppointed to see the result. Im using it with a 24-70 f2.8 and it just slightly out of focus, but enough to render the image unusable. Ive only had it for two weeks. Would sony replace it?
July 17th, 2015 at 12:44 am
I spent some time to micro adjust my lenses I use on LAEA4 and it worked like a charm. No problems at all.
August 5th, 2015 at 7:48 am
Guys, after careful consideration and having tried several micro adjust setups, I can say that LAEA4 with 135 1.8 is pretty inconsistent in delivering the right focus. Therefore I switched to LAEA3 and decided to use 135 1.8 with manual focus only.