Tamron Lens Adapter

[thuggins]

I have decided that 21mm Zuiko will not be added to my collection any time soon, as I almost never use the 24mm. But my brother recently gave me his Minolta SRT kit and among the lenses is a Tamron 21f4.5. This currently has the Minolta adapter on it. The only other Tamron lens I own is the 500f8 and once I managed to get the Olympus adapter on it I've never been able to get it off. It is doubtful if the aperture coupling is functional, but this is moot on the catadioptric lens.

Anyway, the Tamron website doesn't tell you much about the various adapters. What is the experience of you folks? Is it worth looking for Tamron Oly adapter? Another alternative would be an adapter for the Minolta mount to an Oly mount, as the OMs had a shorter back focus distance than other SLR's. It appears that the aperture is not currently coupled, so stop down metering would be required.

 

[benjiboy]

A Tamron Adapt-all 2 Olympus mount on the Tamron 21 mm is your best bet they are easy to fit just put them on match the green dots and turn until it clicks, then pull down the two locking arms, and it will work with full aperture metering on your camera. I use one on my Tamron S.P. 17 mm f3.5 and it works just as well on my Canon cameras as my Canon lenses do.

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

I can report entirely adverse experiences. I'm sure that was also a common theme among several photographers using Tamron and OM bodies decades ago.
In the dawning years of the 1980s, as a start-up photographer all I could afford at the time in lieu of OM Zuiko lenses was Tamron's offerings with the Adaptall-II mounts. Frankly, these things were terrible. Jamming and abrading of the lens mount were two of the more notable gripes and the fiddly nature of attaching and detaching. It took a lot of dedication to finally save enough money for two OM lenses and cheerfuly get rid of the Tamrons -- one small zoom and a longer telephoto (with optical quality that was on a par with looking through a sandblasted windscreen). Whether Tamron made any engineering improvements to those mounts or not in subsequent years was not for me to care or be bothered about.

 

[ciniframe]

I never had any problem with Tamron Adaptall II mounts on my OM bodies. There is one warning however. Until they fixed it by moving the position of the screws early Adaptall II mounts for OM could become jammed on OM-4 and 4Ti models when the black plastic lens sensor button on the face of the camera mount got stuck in the screw clearance hole on the mount adapter. Worse case forcing the lens would shear off the button and result in a expensive repair to the body. I'm not sure if any other OM models have this button (the OM-1 and 1n and OM-2 and 2n does not). I also think the OM-3 and 3Ti have this same sensor button. So if you have either the OM-3 or OM-4 models be careful that you get the later OM mount. Unfortunately sellers often don't know which mount they have.

 

[Jeff L]

It may be worth some research. I don't think the 21mm is an Adapt-all II. It might be an adapt-a-matic. Not sure if the Adapt-all 2 mount fits, may need an old adapt-a-matic.
There is a site that has great info on the Tamron line.
adaptall-2.com

 

[benjiboy]

Buying one Adapt-all mount and constantly changing it on to several lenses, locking and unlocking it doesn't do it any good, anyway it's best to buy one for each Tamron lens you have, and once it's fitted leave it on, trying to change mounts on lenses when you're out shooting anyway is a nightmare you need three hands.

 

[thuggins]

Thanks for the info guys. That adaptall-2.com was especially useful; what a shame that the manufacturer doesn't provide this information about their own product.

This is an Adapt-A-Matic lens and appears to be the first model made by Tamron, so I guess that makes it something of a curiosity. There is no OM adapter shown for these lenses. They do show a Pentax/Praktica mount, so if I could dig up one of those it could be used on an FTL. Though this would certainly require stop down metering, obviating one of the FTL's major innovations. Apart from that I could see if the Minolta is still working, although none of that kit impressed me much. Apart from this lens the rest of them were Vivitar and Tamron zooms, plus one 58f1.4 Minolta prime. My favorite piece is a 30ft remote air release. It still works, although the tubing is getting a bit sticky. Maybe that will come in handy on the OM-3!

 

[AgX]

By the way, Tamron was not the first to offer lenses with a standard intermediate mount to accept adapters for various camera mounts.
In the late 50s Enna (Munich) already did so. For the Exakta- and M42-mount.
Their adapters contained the aperture ring and even the helicoid!

So, in contrast to Tamron here the idea was to keep the adapter on the camera and just exchange the plain lens.

 

[ozphoto]

Buying one Adapt-all mount and constantly changing it on to several lenses, locking and unlocking it doesn't do it any good, anyway it's best to buy one for each Tamron lens you have, and once it's fitted leave it on, trying to change mounts on lenses when you're out shooting anyway is a nightmare you need three hands.

This is *exactly* what I did for my stable of lenses. One mount for each lens; once attached, it stayed attached (until I parted them out when I sold them off.) Only ever had one give me grief the entire 20 years I owned FD equipment, and that was a used mount. Replaced with another (used) and it worked perfectly before I sold off all my FD equipment for EF.

Loved the lenses I had and they served me very well over the years - I was truly sad to let them go.

 

[alanegreen]

I never had any problem with Tamron Adaptall II mounts on my OM bodies. There is one warning however. Until they fixed it by moving the position of the screws early Adaptall II mounts for OM could become jammed on OM-4 and 4Ti models when the black plastic lens sensor button on the face of the camera mount got stuck in the screw clearance hole on the mount adapter. Worse case forcing the lens would shear off the button and result in a expensive repair to the body. I'm not sure if any other OM models have this button (the OM-1 and 1n and OM-2 and 2n does not). I also think the OM-3 and 3Ti have this same sensor button. So if you have either the OM-3 or OM-4 models be careful that you get the later OM mount. Unfortunately sellers often don't know which mount they have.

The two versions of the mount are easy to tell apart - the early ones are marked 'OM' - the later (OM3/4 safe) ones are marked 'OL'