Camera Mounts Sorted by Register

This is a list of known camera mounts (thanks to William-Jan Markerink, who provided almost all the data in this table. I have sorted the mounts in order of decreasing register (flange distance) to help see what adaptations might be feasible with correct infinity focus. Generally speaking, a lens might be adapted to bodies farther down the list; moving upward means that a simple adapter (one with no optical elements) is impossible for an unmodified camera and lens while retaining infinity focus.

Where the distances are the same, or very close, things might or might not work. For example, adapting a Leica R mount lens (distance 47mm) to a Nikon F mount (distance 46.5mm) leaves only 0.5mm space, which might be too thin to make a usable adapter. Close cases also require that the thread or bayonet of the lens must be small enough to fit entirely inside the mount of the body, and this list gives no information. That said, there are examples where an adapter between two mounts of exactly the same distance is possible, notably the Pentax K, for which Pentax M42 adapters are readily available. Presumably Pentax designed the K mount with this in mind. Where no adapter is possible, it is sometimes possible to modify a camera body with a mounting flange from some other system; look here for an example. Note that this isn't a cheap option unless you are a Leica owner. Of course, we can also modify the lens.

Where the distances are widely different, e.g. when adapting most medium-format lenses to most 35mm bodies, an adapter is usually feasible. Some manufacturers even encourage this, e.g. Pentax and Contax.

More modern cameras make things much more complicated with proprietary electronic lens/body connections for aperture control, autofocus, etc; even after buying or making a mechanical adapter, many features of the lens just won't work. Most lens mount conversions sacrifice autofocus, automatic exposure, or both. In some cases, even the camera's light-metering and focus confirm are crippled. One exception is Canon and Sigma SA mounts; apparently the electronic protocols reportedly match, and the lens register seems to be identical. Someone in China has apparently converted a Canon L-series lens to work on his Sigma digital SLR; there is a discussion of the relevant issues in this forum.

The same list is available in alphabetical order here for modern cameras.