Z6 IBIS with manual lenses

Maybe, like me, you bought a Nikon Z6 in part because it has IBIS, and you had a couple of manual, non-stablilzed lenses to use with it.

Or maybe you found out that one of your ‘smart’ lenses – like my Rokinon 14mm – doesn’t actually work with the Z6, and in fact makes it go crazy, so you have to tape off the contacts (with thin non-sticky Teflon tape) to make it usable, like this:

You put that lens on your Z6, and in response the camera automatically, silently, disables IBIS, and you get no stabilization at all. Not what you expected.

Why? The IBIS system wants to know the focal length of the lens , and the camera can’t get that from lenses without electronics. So no IBIS for you – until you find an obscure menu setting for “non-CPU lenses” and enter the data for the lenses you want to use.

Each non-CPU lens will be known to the camera only by a number, and you’ll need to select that number each time you use the lens. An easy way to do this is to assign the “non-CPU lenses” function to one of the several programmable buttons on the camera.

Stability has been restored.



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8 Replies to “Z6 IBIS with manual lenses”

  1. Thankyou sooo much!!! Heart sunk when IBIS was grey out when attaching new Laowa 15mm. Setup Non-CPU lens info like you described… IBIS back on!!!
    many thanks for advice!!

  2. I’ve got a Vintage Nikkor 50mm 1.8 and when I mount it to the FTZ mount and camera, camera just says you have a non recognized lens.

    I’ve added the lens to the Non cpu lens to no avail.

    Is there a manual, shutter setting I am missing

    1. Adding an entry for the lens as “non-CPU” doesn’t do much besides enable IBIS. The camera still can’t detect or control the aperture.

  3. It’s a pity I cannot select 90mm for my Tokina Macro Fmount (non CPU) lens, Not stabilzed, and with 86 being the closest it is doing the opposite of stabilizing it. I asked Nikon to improve this but it never happend, seems the only care about their own older lenses.
    Cheers

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