Testing out the Viltrox EF-FX1
I recently picked up a used Viltrox EF-FX1 on the Amazon marketplace after going back and forth with the pros and cons of it compared to the EF-FX2 and of course the Fringer adapters... I found it hard to bite the bullet for the Fringer even though I'm sure it's objectively better, it might have something to do with the fact that I didn't own any Canon mount AF glass.
I mainly wanted an adapter to mooch from my friends and family when we're out shooting together... and I've flirted with the idea of getting an EF-S mount UWA zoom since that's not typically my style to shoot with, thus, it's hard to stomach the $700 or so cost of a used XF 10-24mm for what I currently shoot. So now you can hopefully understand why to me, spending more than $150 for something like this, is close to out of the question. If you intend to use Canon glass as a large part of your kit, you should probably get the Fringer.
It's very solidly built, fairly light, has a neat little tripod mount that's very easy to remove, and the mount seats pretty snug on both ends (camera body and lens mount).
Basically right after pulling it out of the box I removed the tripod collar, grabbed a USB cord out of a drawer, and downloaded the newest firmware... then it went onto my gear shelf and sat there until I had a day out with a Canon shooting friend (weeks later).
On first testing we went out to Blackwater State Park and my friend allowed me to use a few of his rather nice wildlife lenses on my X-H1.
The first lens I tested was his EF 70-200/2.8 L ii... AF on this lens... worked... technically. It would focus surprisingly quick and accurately let's say... 6/10 times. Those other 4 times though, it would give me the green box confirmation, but it was clearly not focused... in fact, not even close. Definitely not ideal if you're shooting something important, or not paying attention enough to realize the shot is not actually in focus.
Happily, IS and aperture both seemed to be working fine! The EXIF data was a bit of a mixed bag though. The zoom range only reported 70mm, and the aperture read f2.8 regardless of what you changed it to in camera.
Next I tried out his Sigma Art 24/1.4... I took even less shots with this lens, but initial testing was better than with the 70-200/2.8ii. This lens focused fairly quick and happily seemed to lock pretty consistently. Although this is objectively a fantastic lens... I saw no need to really use it/test it much... it's enormous and I already have several lenses in the same range that are way smaller, so this one didn't interest me much... thus, this was the most interesting shot I got with this particular lens...
The EXIF data seems to mostly be there, though it seems to think that this lens has a variable aperture of f1.4-1.8?
Then I got to his Sigma 150-600mm C. This one performed somewhere in the middle of the two which is odd since it's the only one not officially supported as of the latest (2.25) firmware.
This lens focused pretty quickly, and had less misses than the 70-200mm did, but it did still have some false confirms. That said, in AF-S it worked beyond my expectations (which were low) and the IBIS seemed to be working well.
Aside from me being terrible at shooting with such a long lens, and not great at shooting wildlife in general, I think the adapter did pretty darn well, especially considering it's not supposed to work with this lens at all!
Now, as I said earlier, it's certainly not perfect. Notice that the EXIF for this lens is all kinds of wrong. It clearly still thought I was shooting with the Sigma 24mm. What is interesting though, is that it did know whether the lens was stopped down or not. When I shot with the lens wide open it reported "f1.4", but if I stopped it down it just recorded those stops from f1.4 on, it did the same thing when using it on camera... easy enough to work with in my opinion (though not ideal).
X-H1 + Sigma 150-600mm C
Unfortunately, I was a dummy and didn't notice that the 10-18mm was not on the supported list... apparently this didn't matter when mated with the X-Pro2, on that camera it worked fine, but on my X-H1 it immediately locked up the camera.
I did manage to get the lens to work on my X-H1, but in order to do so I had to downgrade the firmware to version 2.14. With this firmware the lens will work on the X-H1, but there is no AF and no IBIS. Thankfully, manual focus still works fine though!
X-Pro2 + EF-S 10-18mm
What's even more strange though, is after changing the firmware the lens won't AF anymore on my X-Pro2. I even upgraded it back to the current firmware and it still wouldn't work on the X-Pro2 anymore... so I'm not sure what's up with that.
I ended up trading the 10-18mm for an EF-S 10-22mm instead. This lens is on the supported list and once I realized there really wasn't much size or price difference between them (used), I went for it.
X-H1 + EF-S 10-22mm
X-H1 + EF-S 10-22mm
Unfortunately this lens does exhibit an occasional lock up, and the false focus confirmations I got with the other lenses. Because of this, I wouldn't recommend using this combo on any of the smaller EVF Fuji bodies... on my X-H1 and X-T1 though, it works great since it's pretty easy to see if the shot is actually in focus or not... most of the time anyway.
All in all the adapter works fine for what it is. If you're like me and you just want to use it to mooch some lenses from your Canon shooting friends, or you have a few Canon mount lenses lying around that you can't seem to bring yourself to get rid of, this adapter can be a nice occasional toy to play with. If you intend to use it in any sort of professional or critical shooting however... what are you doing? Put it back on the shelf.
X-H1 + Sigma 150-600mm C
X-H1 + Sigma 150-600mm C
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