are film and digital slr lenses interchangeable

[i speak in math]

My favorite lens for my camera is from a film slr from 1975. The pentax smc 50mm f/1.4 came out when at the same time the first pentax k1000 was introduced. Its remarkably sharp, even besting many modern, made for digital lenses.

[greeneyedmonsterphotog]

I have tried the lenses from my 21 year old Canon EOS and my 1 year old Canon Rebel XTi, no dice, boy was I disappointed. Great way to ensure I will buy another Canon, Canon!

[OsmosisStudios]

Originally Posted by greeneyedmonsterphotog

I have tried the lenses from my 21 year old Canon EOS and my 1 year old Canon Rebel XTi, no dice, boy was I disappointed. Great way to ensure I will buy another Canon, Canon!

Canon EOS lenses are all EF: The should mount to your XTi. If they were FD, then they wont directly, but EOS is EOS. You wont be able to get the EF-S kit lens from your XTi onto the older film unit, but the film lenses should work no problem with the XTi.

[inkista]

Although, if they were Sigma/Tamron, they might need to be rechipped to fully function. Always the danger going third-party--when the reverse engineering didn't get it quite right and future changes to the mount foul up the works. Canon makes sure the Canon lenses work fine, but they have no obligation to make sure everybody else's EOS-mount lenses still work right.

[nathanbarlow]

pentax smc 50mm f/1.4 - that is an amazing lens. Using it on my (dad's) old Pentax Super ME. Wanting to use it on my digital, but am on a Canon, and mount adapters dont exist/cant exist due to the focal flange distance.

[inkista]

Originally Posted by nathanbarlow

pentax smc 50mm f/1.4 - that is an amazing lens. Using it on my (dad's) old Pentax Super ME. Wanting to use it on my digital, but am on a Canon, and mount adapters dont exist/cant exist due to the focal flange distance.

What are you talking about? Pentax K to EOS adapter abound on eBay, and they do allow focus to infinity. The Pentax K's flange-to-sensor distance is 45.5mm; EOS is 44mm. It's only if the difference is less than 1mm that you can't use an adapter ring.

[Kokopelli]

Any ideas how I can get accurate info on this?

[mattdm]

Originally Posted by Kokopelli

Any ideas how I can get accurate info on this?

By reading the thread above?

[inkista]

Originally Posted by Kokopelli

Any ideas how I can get accurate info on this?

If your Canon film lenses have names that start with "EF", "TS-E" or "MP-E", yes, you can use them on Canon digital SLRs. If they start with "FL" or "FD", you can't without losing image quality and/or the ability to focus to infinity. If your Canon digital lens has a name that starts with "EF-S" it cannot be used on a Canon EOS film body.

With adapter rings, you can also use Nikon F, Contax/Yashica, Leica-R, Olympus OM, Pentax K, and M42 lenses but you will have no autofocus capability, and you must set the aperture manually using an aperture ring on the lens. Upshot: you are stuck in M or Av modes, only.

[bono]

With Sony Alpha DSLRs you can use all old Minolta-AF-Lenses starting with the first models from 1985. There are only some old rare Sigma and Tokina lenses which are incomatible but they are not attractive anyway.

There is only one slight drawback when using old lenses - ADI-Flash does not work (though TTL does). I use a lot of old Minolta lenses and I am very happy with the results.