Olympus / OM System / Panasonic · Mirrorless mount
Micro Four Thirds — flange distance, protocol, and adapter compatibility
Open standard mirrorless mount co-developed by Olympus (now OM System) and Panasonic. 2× crop factor sensor with a 19.25 mm flange is well-suited to legacy-lens adaptation; the small image circle requirement means almost any full-frame lens covers it. Native AF-preserving EF adapter coverage is limited compared to E-mount.
Mount specifications
- Flange focal distance
- 19.25 mm
- Throat diameter
- 38 mm
- Electronic protocol
- Micro Four Thirds
- Supported formats
- MFT
- Manufacturer
- Olympus / OM System / Panasonic
- Introduced
- 2008
- Status
- Active production
Micro Four Thirds on the flange-distance axis
Micro Four Thirds sits at 19.25 mm — highlighted in orange below. The flange-distance gap between the mirrorless and SLR clusters is the room a mechanical adapter occupies; that gap is why almost every SLR lens adapts onto every mirrorless body, and why the reverse is mechanically impossible.
Adapting Micro Four Thirds lenses onto other bodies
You own Micro Four Thirds glass and want to mount it on a body with a different lens mount. Rows are sorted by feasibility.
| Body mount | Result | Adapter examples | Caveats | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Body mount Nikon Z | Mechanical |
|
| ||||
Body mount Canon RF | Speed booster |
|
| Speed Booster equivalence calculator Plug in any Micro Four Thirds lens and pick the focal-reducer family. The calc returns the effective focal length and aperture on a Canon RF (APS-C), plus the full-frame equivalent angle of view after the body's crop stacks on top.
50.0 mm × 0.71 on the reducer. 0.99 stops brighter than f/1.80. 35.5 mm × 1.5× (APS-C sensor crop). A focal reducer concentrates the lens's image circle, so both focal length and f-number scale by the same ratio (stops gained = | |||
Body mount Canon EF-M | Speed booster |
|
| Speed Booster equivalence calculator Plug in any Micro Four Thirds lens and pick the focal-reducer family. The calc returns the effective focal length and aperture on a Canon EF-M (APS-C), plus the full-frame equivalent angle of view after the body's crop stacks on top.
50.0 mm × 0.71 on the reducer. 0.99 stops brighter than f/1.80. 35.5 mm × 1.5× (APS-C sensor crop). A focal reducer concentrates the lens's image circle, so both focal length and f-number scale by the same ratio (stops gained = | |||
Body mount Sony E (incl. FE) | Speed booster |
|
| Speed Booster equivalence calculator Plug in any Micro Four Thirds lens and pick the focal-reducer family. The calc returns the effective focal length and aperture on a Sony E (incl. FE) (APS-C), plus the full-frame equivalent angle of view after the body's crop stacks on top.
50.0 mm × 0.71 on the reducer. 0.99 stops brighter than f/1.80. 35.5 mm × 1.5× (APS-C sensor crop). A focal reducer concentrates the lens's image circle, so both focal length and f-number scale by the same ratio (stops gained = | |||
Body mount Fujifilm X | Speed booster |
|
| Speed Booster equivalence calculator Plug in any Micro Four Thirds lens and pick the focal-reducer family. The calc returns the effective focal length and aperture on a Fujifilm X (APS-C), plus the full-frame equivalent angle of view after the body's crop stacks on top.
50.0 mm × 0.71 on the reducer. 0.99 stops brighter than f/1.80. 35.5 mm × 1.5× (APS-C sensor crop). A focal reducer concentrates the lens's image circle, so both focal length and f-number scale by the same ratio (stops gained = | |||
Body mount Fujifilm GFX (G-mount) | Speed booster |
|
| Speed Booster equivalence calculator Plug in any Micro Four Thirds lens and pick the focal-reducer family. The calc returns the effective focal length and aperture on a Fujifilm GFX (G-mount) (medium-format), plus the full-frame equivalent angle of view after the body's crop stacks on top.
50.0 mm × 0.71 on the reducer. 0.99 stops brighter than f/1.80. 35.5 mm × 0.79× (medium-format sensor crop). A focal reducer concentrates the lens's image circle, so both focal length and f-number scale by the same ratio (stops gained = | |||
Body mount L-Mount | Speed booster |
|
| Speed Booster equivalence calculator Plug in any Micro Four Thirds lens and pick the focal-reducer family. The calc returns the effective focal length and aperture on a L-Mount (APS-C), plus the full-frame equivalent angle of view after the body's crop stacks on top.
50.0 mm × 0.71 on the reducer. 0.99 stops brighter than f/1.80. 35.5 mm × 1.5× (APS-C sensor crop). A focal reducer concentrates the lens's image circle, so both focal length and f-number scale by the same ratio (stops gained = | |||
Body mount Leica M | Speed booster |
|
| Speed Booster equivalence calculator Plug in any Micro Four Thirds lens and pick the focal-reducer family. The calc returns the effective focal length and aperture on a Leica M (APS-C), plus the full-frame equivalent angle of view after the body's crop stacks on top.
50.0 mm × 0.71 on the reducer. 0.99 stops brighter than f/1.80. 35.5 mm × 1.5× (APS-C sensor crop). A focal reducer concentrates the lens's image circle, so both focal length and f-number scale by the same ratio (stops gained = | |||
Adapting other lenses onto a Micro Four Thirds body
You own a Micro Four Thirds body and want to mount glass from other systems. Mirrorless-lens-onto-DSLR-body combinations are omitted (rear element collides with the mirror box).
| Lens mount | Result | Adapter examples | Caveats |
|---|---|---|---|
Lens mount Canon EF | Mechanical |
|
|
Lens mount Canon EF-S | Mechanical |
|
|
Lens mount Canon FD | Mechanical |
|
|
Lens mount Nikon F | Mechanical |
|
|
Lens mount Sony A / Minolta A | Mechanical |
|
|
Lens mount Fujifilm GFX (G-mount) | Mechanical |
|
|
Lens mount M42 (Pentax / Praktica screw mount) | Mechanical |
|
|
Lens mount Leica M | Mechanical |
|
|
Lens mount Pentax K | Mechanical |
|
|
Lens mount PL (Positive Lock) | Mechanical |
|
|
Lens mount Canon EF (cine) | Mechanical |
|
|
Lens mount Exakta | Mechanical |
|
|
Lens mount T-mount (T2) | Mechanical |
|
|
Lens mount C-mount | Mechanical |
|
|
Lens mount Praktica B | Mechanical |
|
|
Lens mount Konica AR | Mechanical |
|
|
Lens mount Minolta SR / MC / MD | Mechanical |
|
|
Lens mount Olympus OM | Mechanical |
|
|
Lens mount Contax/Yashica (C/Y) | Mechanical |
|
|
Lens mount Canon RF | Speed booster |
|
|
Lens mount Canon EF-M | Speed booster |
|
|
Lens mount Nikon Z | Speed booster |
|
|
Lens mount Sony E (incl. FE) | Speed booster |
|
|
Lens mount Fujifilm X | Speed booster |
|
|
Lens mount L-Mount | Speed booster |
|
|
Lens mount Canon RF (cine) | Speed booster |
|
|
Adapter SKU teardown
Curated adapter SKUs that involve the Micro Four Thirds mount on either side, with the operational specifics — body-side electronic contact count, firmware-update path, weather sealing, and whether optical glass is in the path.
Kipon Baveyes M42-MFT 0.7x
released 2016M42 (Pentax / Praktica screw mount) lens → Micro Four Thirds body
- no firmware updates
- not weather sealed
- optical glass in path (focal reducer)
- 0.7× focal reducer (Caldwell-licensed optics) for M42 screw-mount lenses onto Micro Four Thirds bodies (OM-1 II / OM-5 / G9 II / GH7 / Pen E-P7). ~1 stop wider effective aperture and reduced 2× crop factor (effective ~1.4×).
- Purely optical — no electronics, no AF, no firmware. M42 lens aperture handled by the lens's own ring or stop-down lever. Lets vintage M42 wides (Helios 44-2 58 mm f/2, Mir-1 37 mm f/2.8, Carl Zeiss Jena Flektogon 35 mm f/2.4) regain something closer to their original field-of-view on MFT.
Viltrox EF-M2 II
released 2018Canon EF lens → Micro Four Thirds body
- 11 body-side contacts
- firmware updatable
- not weather sealed
- optical glass in path (focal reducer)
- 0.71× focal-reducer ('speed booster') for Canon EF / EF-S glass on Micro Four Thirds bodies — recovers roughly one stop of light and widens the field of view, pulling the effective crop from the bare 2.0× MFT factor toward ~1.42×.
- Autofocus supported for EF / EF-S lenses (single-shot AF reliable; continuous AF noticeably slower than native MFT glass). Forwards electronic aperture and EXIF; firmware-updatable via micro-USB.
- A Canon EF 50 mm f/1.8 behaves close to a 71 mm f/1.3-equivalent in full-frame field-of-view + depth-of-field terms on the 2× sensor; an EF 24 mm f/2.8 widens to roughly a 34 mm f/2.0-equivalent.
Firmware history
- v1.00
- Initial release of the revised 'II' — improved AF firmware and coatings over the original EF-M2
- 0.71× focal reduction with single-shot AF, electronic aperture, EXIF and in-lens IS pass-through for Canon EF / EF-S glass on Micro Four Thirds bodies, updatable over micro-USB
- v2.00
- AF-tuning refinements and an expanded EF / EF-S + Sigma / Tamron EF lens-compatibility list
- More reliable single-shot AF on Panasonic GH5 / G9 and Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II bodies
Approximate milestones — verify against the Viltrox firmware page for the authoritative changelog.
References
Common questions
- What's the crop factor of Micro Four Thirds compared to full-frame?
- 2× — a 25 mm MFT lens has the same horizontal field-of-view as a 50 mm full-frame lens. The sensor is 17.3 × 13 mm with a 4:3 aspect ratio (hence "Four Thirds"). All focal-length and depth-of-field comparisons against full-frame must factor in this 2× multiplier; an MFT 25 mm f/1.4 gives roughly the same DOF as a full-frame 50 mm f/2.8.
- Which bodies use the Micro Four Thirds mount?
- All OM System / Olympus bodies (OM-1 Mark II, OM-5, E-M10 Mark IV, Pen E-P7) and all Panasonic Lumix G bodies (G9 II, GH7, GH6, GH5 II, G100D, GX9). Both manufacturers ship native lenses, plus a deep third-party lineup (Sigma, Tamron, Voigtländer, Laowa, Leica via Panasonic licensing). Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K and DJI Air drone gimbals also use MFT.
- Are there AF-preserving Canon EF-to-MFT adapters?
- Limited — the Viltrox EF-M2 II Speed Booster brings EF lenses to MFT with 0.71× focal reduction and AF on a narrow whitelist (mostly Canon-brand and a few Sigma EF primes). Most EF-to-MFT adapters are dumb mechanical rings without AF. The MFT-native fast-prime lineup (Olympus M.Zuiko 25 mm f/1.2 Pro, Panasonic Leica DG Summilux 25 mm f/1.4 II) is strong enough that EF adaptation is rarely the path most MFT users take.