I've written quite extensively about using the Monster LA-FE1 adaptor with the Sony A1 and various Nikon lenses. Of all the Nikon F-mount lenses I've tried, the 70-200mm f/2.8 E and the 500mm f/5.6 PF lens are the most satisfactory on the Sony A1 body with this adaptor.

One thing I had not tried much was making portraits using adapted Nikon lenses. The 70-200mm f/2.8 E lens is excellent for portraits, so I wanted to give it a good go.

I took the opportunity to use the Nikon 70-200–LA-FE1–A1 combination on a shoot at Borde Hill Gardens with the model Evie Siddal. The gardens were gorgeous in June with a wonderful array of flowering plants.

I'm showing some pictures here to illustrate how well the whole combination, and especially the eye-autofocus, works. I shot with either wide area or zone AF with human eye-AF activated, AF-C, back button AF and either single frame, low- (L, 10fps) or medium- (M, 15 fps) frame rate settings. The LA-FE1 was on firmware v05 (one version short of the latest v06). The A1 had firmware v2.01.

The autofocus tends to stutter a little when it is activated, but pretty quickly finds the eye of the subject. When it finds the eye, the focus locks accurately. The look I was going for required minimal depth of field to separate the subject from soft out-of-focus backgrounds. Occasionally, I focused across flowers in the foreground, again with them softly out of focus.

As the pictures show, the lens loses none of the sharpness and gentle transitions to soft backgrounds that it gave on Nikon DSLRs. The overall look is lovely.

I can't remember how many images missed focus because it was very few indeed. I deleted one or two, but overall the focus was extremely accurate.

However, I experienced something I'd never noticed with the adaptor before. When shooting a fairly intense series of frames, the camera would occasionally lock up. I had to eject and re-insert the battery to get it to work again. This was a nuisance, but in the end, it didn't cause me to lose any pictures. However, if you were, for instance, trying to shoot a wedding with this combination, you might miss critical moments.

Back home, I tried reproducing the effect with a static target that activated eye AF. I didn't get a lock-up then, but I doubt this exactly replicates how I would shoot with a real person. I can't be sure, but the lock-ups may have had to do with using the M drive setting which gives 15fps. It slipped my mind on the day that the adaptor is only specced for 10fps; I may have been pushing it too hard. The other thing that has changed is the recent update to firmware 2.01 on the A1 body. The adaptor's firmware ante-dates this, so there might be some incompatibility introduced between the firmware versions. If I do manage to reproduce the effect I'll update this blog.

Overall, the Nikon 70-200–LA-FE1–A1 gave beautiful pictures and locked autofocus on the subject's eye extremely well. I'll certainly use it again in the future, but likely only with low frame rates (and probably when I've had a chance to update the adaptor's firmware).