How to use your Contax G mount lens on a Sony E (NEX) camera body?

Sony E body + Contax G lens

COMPATIBLE MF MA AF AR

Allows using full focal length (even with AF) and manual aperture settings.

The Contax G was introduced by Yashica in 1994, as a competitor of the Leica rangefinders. The titanium-clad Contax G1 and G2 bodies had AF, therefore their native lenses had AF capability too. The lenses can be used on E receptacles using electronic adapters (the optics were designed by Zeiss, in comparable quality to the cameras).

G lenses are pretty small, so they fit the tiny Sony cameras well. Currently it seems to be only one adapter with AF support, manufactured by Techart. Of course, analog adapters are also available, but their capabilities are very limited.

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Terminology

In terms of compatibility, we distinguish four separate categories:

COMPATIBLE

PARTIALLY COMPATIBLE

COMPATIBLE IN THEORY

NOT COMPATIBLE

This means that you'll be able to apply the lens on the camera in question with a proper adapter, and full focus range will be available with it (often with aperture control too). If AF is supported, you'll see it in the description.

This means that due to the flange focal depth or other factor this conversion would be normally unfeasible, but with some compromises (e.g. using a speedbooster adapter) can be made possible.

This means that the flange focal depth should make mounting and using inifinty focus possible, but for some reason there are no adapter rings available or other factors make it unviable.

This means that you won't be able to mount your lens due to mechanical incompatibility or the difference in flange focal depth doesn't make inifinity focus possible. Although numerous lenses can be mounted on cameras without infinity focus, but this cannot be considered actual compatibility.

Additional information for compatible variations:

MAC

manual focus (on the lens, with its own control ring)

autofocus available (AF controlled by the camera body)

manual aperture control (on the lens, with its own control ring)

automatic aperture control (controlled by the camera body)

speedbooster (focal reducer) adapters are available

macro (variable length) adapters are available

tilt-shift (or other flexible) adapters can be used

If you'd like to read more in-depth about compatiblity, you'll need to get familiar with flange focal depth, see this article.