buy the SLR Magic lens gear. It's a special fit and works brilliantly with the Lanparte FF.

@peaceonearth Anything SLR makes as an add on is the biggest rip off if you ask me. PERIOD. I'm using a cheap india FF and it works just fine. I'm going to pick up the lanparte or trustmt soon from here since mine has turned to shit though. I say Andrew and SLR is out to rip people off because I emailed him with a concern I had about my lens and he said oh well, he hasn't seen this problem, then offered to sell me one of their overpriced gears. This is already after having a conversation with him about the insanely overpriced step-up ring they make and he told me he didn't know of any other cheap alternative and this is what his engineers came up with. It took me 2 min on amazon or ebay, I can't remember which to find exactly what they sell for $8. I know companies are out to make money but their practices are really disappointing to me. Sorry about that rant!

Anyways, I'll post a pick of my setup to help you out or maybe @Pechente can too. I'm using gears similar to the lanparte but they are $10 each. I buy them for all my lens'

@vicharris and others who are curios:

I already posted my setup here:

http://personal-view.com/talks/discussion/comment/42763#Comment_42763

@vicharris It's a cheap one I bought from thecinecity/Proaim (these indian guys), I wouldn't recommend it but it's okay for starters. I completely moved away from matte boxes for now because of the high 4x4 filter prices and incompatibility with my lenses that extend when being focussed or are simply too wide, like the 12mm Noktor.

Try to get it from a shop where you can test and return it.

@vicharris thanks for you time doing the pictures. I will try it again, in my first attempt it didn't get the FF close enough to the gear ring. Actually I an at home and I cannot try it until the day after tomorrow. Maybe the rewo cage was causing the issue, I cant remember anymore. I helped myself with a filter wrench

@vicharris Why is buying from us the biggest mistake you made? I suggested the lens gear to you because it is now available and many AF-100 users find it very useful. @thougts2uk has our lens gear and he find it very useful as well.

We received many requests to make a lens gear for our 12mm 1.6 lens as strap on or zip on solutions are cumbersome. We discussed with many cinematographers to come up with this design. @Vitaliy_Kiselev knows we intended to make this gear since a year ago and it takes time to get feedback and made changes to the design. It is extremely sad to read comments such as our gear is taken off an old clock radio for 29 cents.

If you are so unsatisfied with the lens you received even after months of use I would buy it back from you for the price you bought the lens from us personally as long as you cover for the shipping cost with mail tracking.

There was another case where @Vitaliy_Kiselev quoted negative comments from another forum on us. The two beta testers would complain about us until he get their money back so after two and a half months I bought the lens directly from them and now they are not complaining anymore. With their case they bought a $10,000 lens since 18 months ago so when it arrived they wanted a refund for the HyperPrime 50mm T0.95 lens as they do not need two lenses. It was made clear sales to beta testers are final and we can only service the lens for them but they choose the route to complain all over forums till they get their money back after playing with the lens for 2.5 months. For your case it is due to us not being able to cancel your order as we have processed the shipping to you already. If you send us an order cancellation request immediately we can help you. However, due to time difference if you respond a day later we have already processed the order. I do not want you to continue to be upset and complain about our company or directly towards me like a personal attack so I will offer to buy the lens back from you if that makes you feel better about the situation but there is no need to have a personal attack on me on every Noktor 12mm f/1.6 tread page. Please send a paypal request for the amount we charged you with 14 days. If we do business that terribly there would be more people here complaining about us. I hope we can end the complaints on your lens purchase this way.

Kind rgds., Andrew

@MirrorMan

Which store did you go to?

@slrmagic

I think my lens seems way to soft (unusable) below 2.0. Maybe you could confirm if my lens is faulty or if it works like other 12mm lenses. If my copy is alright I don't think it is alright to market the lens as a 1.6 since my phone could produce sharper images than what I get at that apperture. I attached two pictures, one shot at 1.6 and the other at 4.0 so that you could compare them. I would be happy for a reply so I know if I should return it to the store where I bought it.

@Alfaerik At 1.6 the flowers look in focus. We made this lens as a result from a discussion at dpreview.com http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1041&message=36104678

It was general consensus that rather than making a small aperture lens we should let the lens open up to ask much as we can. It is a known issue that the lens is soft at wide open but users said they will stop down and only shoot wide open when necessary in extreme dark conditions where they absolutely need 1.6. The lens also flares at 1.6 and it is much better when used at 2.8. By 2.0 the flares go away and sharpness goes up till 2.8. As we made the lens go focus down to a few cm we sacrificed infinity performance so it is not the best landscape lens. Its a specialty lens for a special purpose and not an all purpose lens and I am sure many here already know. The close focus performance of this lens is much better than the far focus. Infinity for this lens is around 20 feet or so only due to wide angle.

However, you can always go to the shop and try another one if you wish.

Kind rgds., John

@Alfaerik normally you don't need to play with shallow focus in wide angle infinity shots. So f 4 seems to be perfect. I shoot close-ups at f 2.0 - the where sharp at the point in the middle of the pictures

@Alfaerik This is just other wording for soft "At open aperture, the lens renders pictures and video with extreme shallow depth of field for a dreamy and unique aesthetic" But on the GH2 that is a good thing sometimes! :)