[inkista]

Originally Posted by fletch

Surely its one of the areas where you really want an Olympus!

Nup, Nathan. Fletch is correct. Theoretically. The Oly/Panasonic four-thirds system has the smallest flange-to-sensor distance of any dSLR system (38.67mm vs. EOS's 44mm), and is indeed the king of adapting. The problem is that there are many more people with Canon dSLRs than there are with Olympus dSLRs, and so the adapter makers have targeted Canon. While you can only adapt 6 mounts to Canon and you could adapt 10 different mounts to Olympus four-thirds (see the chart I linked to above), you can't find four-thirds adapters for all 10 mounts.

Realistically, you'll probably only be able to readily find adapters for the same six mounts Canon EOS can use: Pentax K, Nikon F, Olympus OM, Leica R, Contax/Yashica, and M42. I'd assume because of the economics of scale and the cost of setting up the machining required.

But Panny/Oly µ4/3? Different story. Seriously pwns in this arena. The micro four-thirds mount can not only be adapted for every manual-focus SLR mount, it can also take every manual focus rangefinder-mount lens as well. µ4/3's flange-to-sensor distance is 20mm. Leica M, M39, Olympus Pen F--the old glass and adapters thereto for µ4/3 are coming out of the woodwork. And having the ability to mount M39 is particularly sweet, because that was the "standard" mount everybody used: you can find Nikon, Canon, Leica, and Zeiss in M39. You can actually find Canon FD, Minolta MD, etc. etc. for µ4/3. It's the manual focus lens set's darling format. The only problem? ... everybody wants the wide lenses. [sigh]. Crop factors have that effect.

And I keep telling you guys. The Oly OM 50/1.8 is a terrific bargain, and almost a pancake lens. But the one you really want is the Oly OM 50/1.2. And the 18/3.5. And the 40/2 pancake. And... man, those OM Zuikos are nice.