Lens Adapter

[Pmurtagh]

I'm a nikon camera guy, and have recently purchased a canon XTi (couldn't pass up the deal I got), but it was for the body only. I was looking on BHP and they have a nikon lens adapter for the canon.

I have a D60 with the kit lens and the 55-200mm zoom. Both are the AF-S.

Has anyone had any experience with this? I'm eventually going to buy a canon lens, but until then, 60 bucks to be able to use this camera now is too good to pass up. Are there any side effects, like potential damage to the lenses?

Thanks,

[firebox40dash5]

You won't have proper metering, meaning you'll have to guess or buy a meter to get the right exposure. And I'm pretty sure it won't work with Nikon G lenses (without an aperture ring), since the Canon body won't be able to set the aperture. I'd steer clear of anything made by 'Bower', I have one of their filter step-down rings, and even that it pretty junky. I can't imagine how they'd be any better at making something like a mount adapter.

You could pick up a Canon 50mm for $40 more, and have a working aperture, metering and autofocus.

[Pmurtagh]

Thanks for the reply. I'll just wait and get a canon lens. Just have to decide which will be best for IR photography.

[inkista]

Probably getting a Canon lens is best, but I've had decent luck adapting Contax Zeiss to my Canon XT for IR work. (I've used adapter rings with AF confirm chip from big_is and happypageHK via eBay. If ordering from a Hong Kong seller makes you nervous, you could also just get a Fotodiox ring from Adorama or B&H).


Canon XT. Adapted Contax Zeiss Distagon T* 28mm f/2.8 (AE). f/8. iso 400. 2 minutes.
Hoya R72, tripod, mirror lockup, cable release.

With an infrared filter, like the Hoya R72 and an unmodified body, you are going to be using a tripod and probably smaller apertures anyway. And focusing becomes a serious PITA if you don't have liveview--the R72 is dark enough to make composing/focusing through the viewfinder tricky. While relying on autofocus may be the best thing; a manual focus lens is not necessarily a bad tool either, since you'll have a large and more precise distance scale and possibly an IR focus mark, too. Also, my Distagon 28/2.8 cost me a whopping $230.

The one lens you definitely want to avoid for this is an EF-S 18-55 kit lens. Has an IR hotspot, and it's impossible to put the filter on without changing the focus of the lens, even if you "lock" it in to manual focus.

You can adapt F-mount lenses to your Canon. And what the previous poster said is untrue: you will not lose metering. It will be stop-down metering (with the viewfinder going darker), rather than wide-open metering, but you do retain metering with manual lenses on all Canon dSLRs. You have no autofocus and no way to control the aperture, however, so it is best to use a manual focus lens with an aperture ring, or you'll be stuck shooting wide-open. The other Canon bonus is you can go for those pre-AI lenses without any worries about camera damage. You will not hurt the lens at all, you're just making it wear a ring. The biggest potential downside is damage to the camera if you used a chipped adapter ring, and the chip somehow fries your camera by being wrongly aligned or with bad contacts, or it falls off into the body. As I said, I've had good luck with chipped rings from those two specific sellers. But if you're paranoid, you can use a ring without a chip.

[Pmurtagh]

Thanks Inkista. I was going to get a ring as a temporary fix until I could get a new lens.

I bought this camera specifically for IR photography. Its going to get a new filter put in internally.

What do you recommend as a lens for IR?

[inkista]

Well, like I said, I like my Contax-mount Zeiss Distagon 28mm f/2.8, but I'm really weird.

Basically, I'd say figure out what lens is appropriate for what you want to shoot in IR (i.e., a wide angle for landscapes, a portrait lens for portraits), and then pick one that doesn't have a known IR hotspot. I put a link to a list of known good/bad Canon EOS lenses for IR in my previous post. Here it is again:

Canon EOS Infra-red (IR) Compatible Lenses

[Pmurtagh]

Thanks for the link. I'll be using it to make my decisions. I might keep the two worlds seperate (IR and regular) and have canon and nikon glass. That way I don't have to worry about changing things up as much.

[inkista]

The only reason I'd say not to keep things separate is if you find that you like using older manual focus lenses. You can find some very good bargains in old F-mount glass, and those would be great on both sides of the fence, and some of them would probably rock for IR. I only gave you the list of Canon lenses, because I'm a Canon shooter and that's what I know. There's are similar lists out there on Nikon lenses (like this and this.)

I hang out on the Fred Miranda forum for Alternative Gear (i.e., not Nikon/Canon), and a lot of the guys there shoot both systems, and often purchase, say, a Zeiss ZF lens in the Nikon mount because it means they can use the lens on both mounts by simply getting an EOS adapter ring for the lens.