Give Your Sony Camera Shift Capabilities With the Laowa Magic Shift Converter

One thing the Sony system lacks is a large assortment of tilt-shift lenses, but this adapter allows you to use existing Canon or Nikon lenses on a Sony body and add shift capabilities. Check out this great video review of the Laowa Magic Shift Converter.

Coming to you from Dustin Abbott, this great review looks at the Laowa Magic Shift Converter. Though designed for the Laowa 12mm f/2.8 Zero-D lens, it can accept any Canon EF or Nikon F mount lens and add shift capabilities. This allows you to do things like photograph buildings and correct converging parallels. While this is an awesome capability to have (and a much cheaper route than a dedicated lens), two drawbacks are the loss of one stop of aperture and the inability to electronically control the aperture, which makes the adapter difficult to use with lenses that don't have a dedicated aperture ring. On the other hand, another major advantage is that the adapter comes with a tripod ring, which in theory allows you to keep the lens perfectly still and shift the camera, creating the best possible panoramas. If you're like many Sony shooters who are using adapted lenses for at least some of their work, it's a very interesting product. Check out the video above for Abbott's full thoughts. 

Alex Cooke's picture

Alex Cooke is a Cleveland-based portrait, events, and landscape photographer. He holds an M.S. in Applied Mathematics and a doctorate in Music Composition. He is also an avid equestrian.

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11 Comments

As an owner and daily user of the Canon 17mm TSE and 24mm TSE I dont have a bad thing to say about this. Seems really interesting, I wonder if it will work with a typical 35mm or 50mm?

There was someone in the comments of the video who said they’ve tried all the way up to 135mm and had nothing but good experiences.

Bought it and not having electronic apeture control is a no go.

Yeah, that’s a bummer. I do know that with Canon lenses, you could set the aperture on a Canon body, then attach it to the Sony, but that’s obviously an inconvenient workaround. Better to stick with lenses with aperture rings.

There are plenty of sharp manual Nikon lenses out there that would be a suitable option.

Yeah. Was looking for a shift adapter for lenses already owner not to have to buy more lenses. I was bummed it didn’t work. Was looking forward to it working.

So this adapter converts a 12mm into a shiftable 17mm; which has me wondering: if instead we corrected the keystone in post, would we get a similar crop factor, or worse?

Perhaps but you’d preserve all of your resolution with this.

Also it’s more about the keystone correction. The ability to shift allows for compositions that would be impossible otherwise.

Regarding your presentation. A black background, a black shirt and a black product.

Do you have a recommendation for a 24mm equivalent? I have been using the msc with the 12mm an it’s great. Also used my Canon 16-35mm 2.8 with the msc but the image circle of that lens is not big enough to be able to shift all the way.

I was wondering if this adaptor would work with the Zeiss distagon F3.5 ZF2. I think this could make a nice combo for long exposure architectural photography! Any thoughts?