I got my first mirrorless camera recently(Nikon Zf), and I am excited to adapt the manual focus lenses into the camera but one of the problems of adapting lenses is the mount does not fit perfectly. It is wobbly and moves a little bit when I try to manually focus the lenses, make it harder to precisely focus and it is not a joy to use. It is caused by the adapter or the lens mount cheap out on QC and the tolerance is too high . I only had the problem with the cheapest Chinese lenses and adapters(TTArtisan, 7Artisan, K&F concept). I have tried lenses and adapters from Nikon that mount smooth and fit perfectly, not a problem at all(Made in Thailand, my country BTW). I searched on the internet how to fix it and nothing came out.
I had to find the solution myself and came up with using a super thin soft tape that can lay inside the lenses or the adapter without a fiction that would make the lens stuck in the mount forever. It is the plumber’s tape. The white soft thin tape that we use to seal the water pipe.
I’m making sure that I screw everything tight both the lens, adapter and the camera mount and I wrap only one layer of the plumber’s tape around the lens’s collar, just like we did with the pipe thread and mount the lens or the adapter into the camera. The result is it’s harder to mount for the first time but the wobbly, the shake gap is gone. It’s like from the 1st party manufacturer. and most importantly I can unmount the lens with ease and the tape stays there with the lens so it’s remountable. I think it would help the water drop&drip resistance too since the plumber’s tape literally made for the water seal job but I would not go that far. Just the lens does not shake while I turn the focusing ring is good enough.
TLDR: Use the plumber’s tape to fix the wobbly lens mount.
