Lens Adapters

[ElectricElf]

Hey guys!

I've been messing around with cameras for a while. Pointy-clicky ones and "bridge" ones, 35mm basics...you get the idea.

Just recently, I bought a Canon 450D to get into digital photography for real which opens up a whole new world of questions, most interesting of which, lenses.

I've been reading around and found you can get adapters which allows you to put an old 35mm SLR lens on a DSLR. Obviously EXIF and Autofocus goes out the window but I have 2 questions that maybe someone help me with;

Is this a reliable set up that will take decent pictures? (Depending on the quality of the lens, of course)

Is there any chance I can damage my camera with these adapters?

Any responses would be greatly appreciated as this would save me a lot of money in lenses! I have a 50mm, a 80 - 300mm macro and a wide-angle just sitting around, unused. Buying those three for a DSLR will be expensive!

Thank you in advance


I hope I posted this in the right section

[OsmosisStudios]

If you're talking about FD to EOS adapters (older Canon to current Canon), then yes, they exist, but no, they're probably not much good.

[inkista]

Originally Posted by ElectricElf

Is this a reliable set up that will take decent pictures? (Depending on the quality of the lens, of course)

Let me put it to you this way. I own half a dozen manual focus lenses I use with adapter rings on my 50D. Works for me.


Canon XT. Leica Summicron-R 35mm. iso 400. f/2. 1/80s. handheld.


Canon 50D. Contax Zeiss Planar T* 100/2. iso 3200. f/4-ish. 1/100s. handheld.

You did miss one other thing you won't have, though--the ability to control the aperture of the lens from the camera body. This also means you won't have wide-open metering, and you can only shoot in full Manual or aperture priority modes. You will have stop-down metering, though.

Is there any chance I can damage my camera with these adapters?

Yes, but it'll be pretty self-evident, not some subtle thing. The fit of the ring on the mount and on the lens will have to do with how well within tolerances it is. If you're willing to pay at least $50 or more for a ring, you shouldn't have any problems with fit. It's when you go for the $10 eBay jobs out of Hong Kong you have to watch it. But obviously, if you can't get it onto the lens easily and it doesn't mount easily, don't use it.

The other danger is if you use a chipped ring for autofocus confirmation and EXIF reporting. The chip needs to be placed correctly (to avoid shorting the contacts), and should be firmly attached. If it falls off and into the camera body, there's the possibilty of damage.

That said, I use chipped rings on my lenses and I've never had a problem, other than an occasional ERR01 that was easily cleared by simply remounting the lens.

Any responses would be greatly appreciated as this would save me a lot of money in lenses! I have a 50mm, a 80 - 300mm macro and a wide-angle just sitting around, unused. Buying those three for a DSLR will be expensive!

Not necessarily. The Canon 50/1.8 is only $100. And a Sigma 70-300 Macro APO is about $200 on Amazon. And, as Os says, if they're FD/FL Canon mount lenses, you cannot adapt them this way without losing image quality and/or the ability to focus to infinity. And having autofocus and aperture control from the camera would be worth the price of a new EOS-mount version of the lens. Wide angle, though, that can get costy.

There are only six SLR lens mounts that can be adapted to Canon EOS mount with simple rings:

• Nikon F (NOT G-mount. You need the aperture ring). Pre-AI is ok for us, though.
• Pentax K
• M42 (aka Pentax Thread Mount, or Pentax Screwmount)
• Contax/Yashica
• Olympus OM
• Leica R (and we don't have to worry about the number of cams stuff).

If your lenses aren't on that list, it may still be adaptable, but it might require disassembly of the lens mount and your own machine shop to get the lens to sit at the proper distance. And that's more tinkering than most folks want to handle.

[ddr]

While we're talking about adapters, which is a decent FD->EOS adapter?

I've seen $19 ones, $79 ones, and heard of a very limited Canon-made one that would costs $300+ which I cannot find. I guess there are two main types, one with optics and one without. Which would be a decent one with optics?

[inkista]

Depends on your definition of decent and what you want to adapt the lens for.

The problem here is that the FD mount had a shorter distance from the film plane to the mount flange. Because it's physically impossible to shove the lens farther into the camera body without blocking the mirror's path, if you want to have focus to infinity, you have to use an adapter with a glass element. If you use a simple ring without a piece of glass in it, then that lens won't focus to infinity. This may not be a problem if you're adapting a macro lens or portrait lens that you plan to use at close distances.

But if you want to focus to infinity, then you have to have the glass element. And it's essentially acting as a teleconverter. So you'll always take some kind of IQ hit, and the worse the quality of the glass, the worse the hit you take. But essentially, if you think about it, a $40 adapter isn't likely to have particularly good glass, so with FD adapters, the best one is probably the Canon brand one, but it's also the rarest, most expensive, and least compatible (it mostly only worked with the telephoto L lenses). And you lose 2/3 of a stop off the max. aperture. The general wisdom is that unless you're adapting to micro 4/3, it's probably not worth the trouble.

I don't have any personal experience to say whether or not it's worth it, but most of the outstanding use of FD lenses on EOS mount I've seen have been from people who physically modify the lens's mount.

[ddr]

=( thanks for the thorough explanation though.

[ElectricElf]

Hey guys,

Thanks for all the responses, and quick too! You guys dont sleep either then!

inkista, thanks for the detailed explanation and examples. The lenses I have are Pentax K mount so it should be ok. I'll keep you posted with examples in the coming weeks.

[inkista]

Originally Posted by ddr

=( thanks for the thorough explanation though.

Well, as I said at the top of my post, it depends on your definition of "decent". This "general wisdom" is culled mostly from the image-seeking/pixel-peeing glass fanatics who can afford to use $1600+ ZE lenses.

At the other end of the spectrum, there are the folks who like boasting about how they picked up $6 lenses at the local flea market.

Bob Atkins reviewed one FD-> EOS adapter. And the mflenses.com and photography-on-the.net forums have threads about folks using FD adapters, showing examples. I think the quality hit stuff may be overemphasized. I think they're certainly usable.

It's just that my personal preference is to shoot without a tc if I can at all avoid it, and my legacy glass was all OM-mount.