Anyone use lens mount adapters on Canon DSLR's?

[Tim Murphy]

Dear Board,

All the talk about the new Nikon Zf and the subsequent mention of the Df kind of prompts this question.

Fifteen years ago, I bought my first DSLR a Canon 20D. It was used and I only got a body, but I already had a Canon EF 28-80 and Canon EF 70-300 from my film days, so I made do with it. But I had my grandfather's Nikon FTN and 5.8cm f/1.4 and when I found an adapter that showed focus confirmation from Fotodiox, I spent the $ 15.00 and got it.

To my surprise, it actually worked quite well with that old lens once I stopped it down a bit to compensate for the lack of depth of field wide open. I used it on subsequent Canon DSLR's and still use it today though my Nikkor MF lens collection has grown a bit.

I was seriously thinking about looking for a Nikon Df to use more of those lenses. But I'd rather ask people if they have had success using adapted lenses regardless of brand on their Canon cameras? I could buy a Nikon Df and keep using my Nikkors, but I have collected many Pentax and Olympus lenses too, all of them I like on their native camera bodies.

I'd rather buy $ 100.00 worth of adapters and spend $ 1000.00 on used lenses than spend that same amount of money to use only my Nikkors. I have a Canon 1DX to use as a recipient for the adapted lenses.

All comments are appreciated, even if someone tells me to stick with something for once and be done with things! 😉

Regards,

Tim Murphy

Harrisburg PA 🙂

 

[CMur12]

Hi Tim -

Pentax M42 lenses also work on Canon DSLRs with easily obtained adapters.

- Murray

 

[Godfrey]

The basic rule of thumb is that the deeper the lens mount register (the distance from the len mounting flange to the film/sensor image plane) of a given mount, the harder it is to adapt non-native lenses to it. Conversely, lenses made for cameras with large mount registers are easier to adapt to other, shorter mount registers because there is enough room to fit an adapter.

So: Canon EOS mount register is 44mm putting it in the bottom-middle of the range of SLR mount registers. It's shorter than Nikon, Leica R, Olympus OM, Pentax M42 or K, etc. So it is relatively easy to create mount adapters for those lens systems to Canon EOS. Because the mount register is short. It is therefore harder to adapt Canon EOS lenses to those other cameras and achieve infinity focus.

I've played this adaptation game for many years. My summary of all those years of experience is that, in general, it is much better to use whatever the native lenses for a given mount might be, and best to reserve adaptation to those situations where an appropriate lens for a given body either doesn't exist or the body has some incredibly useful feature that poses a significant advantage despite the inconveniences of using adapted lenses.

The special circumstances where this is of minor significance is when a manufacturer include lens mount adaptation from their own older system of lenses to their newer system. Examples of this are lens mount adaptation for FourThirds lenses to Micro-FourThirds, for Leica R to Leica M, for Nikon F to Nikon Z mounts. No one knows the ins and outs of a lens mount and lens line better than the people who designed them... 🙂

G

 

[Freakscene]

I've played this adaptation game for many years. My summary of all those years of experience is that, in general, it is much better to use whatever the native lenses for a given mount might be, and best to reserve adaptation to those situations where an appropriate lens for a given body either doesn't exist or the body has some incredibly useful feature that poses a significant advantage despite the inconveniences of using adapted lenses.

I agree but I’d be more sweeping: with mirrorless cameras you focus on the sensor and they are designed for stopped down focus and viewing and they have both magnified view and focus peaking. These work very well. On an SLR, where registration from the mirror needs to be identical to the film plane, where stop down metering is dim and difficult, adapting lenses is a slow ride to total frustration unless you have all the time in the world.

 

[Tim Murphy]

I agree but I’d be more sweeping: with mirrorless cameras you focus on the sensor and they are designed for stopped down focus and viewing and they have both magnified view and focus peaking. These work very well. On an SLR, where registration from the mirror needs to be identical to the film plane, where stop down metering is dim and difficult, adapting lenses is a slow ride to total frustration unless you have all the time in the world.

Dear Freakscene,

I understand that and have adapters for various lenses to mount on M4/3'rds cameras. They all work well.

I only want to try other MF lenses on my Canon EOS bodies, they would not replace native lenses for me except in a few instances. I think I'll spend $ 40.00 and get the M42 to EOS and OM to EOS adapters just for fun.

Regards,

Tim Murphy

Harrisburg PA 🙂

 

[Guaranteed]

I've got a few C/Y mount lenses adapted for my Canons that, for my needs, work well enough.

Had to dig through my Amazon history(2011 😆) to find them but here they are.


Best of luck sorting it out.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Where was huge list of lenses compatible with 5d series.

This was big before mirrorless.
But DSLR only works with SLR lenses. Mirrorless takes RF and else.