Old analogue lenses

[Rits]

I know that my old lenses from my Canon film SLR will fit on my new digital SlR and yes they do work but being new to Digital SLR's and a rank amateur, how do I actually know if they are satisfactory/still good for the job. Should I get them looked at? Should I just practise and see? I don't know if my own judgement is good enough. My old Eos 630 was used with Canon EF 28-70 and Sigma 70-210. My current camera is Canon 50D. I was going to buy new lenses for a course I will be attending.

[ricktas]

Most old lenses will work, but often only in full manual mode (they dont have autofocus motors). Not sure with Canon, but Nikon lets us set all the lens preferences in camera, so the camera knows what the lens is and its limitations.

Your lenses, it is more about the nomenclature than the zoom. Somewhere on the lens barrel it will say something like F3.5-f5.6 etc. Tell us that information and we can give you more details about the lens

[RaoulIsidro]

I know that my old lenses from my Canon film SLR will fit on my new digital SlR and yes they do work but being new to Digital SLR's and a rank amateur, how do I actually know if they are satisfactory/still good for the job. Should I get them looked at? Should I just practise and see? I don't know if my own judgement is good enough. My old Eos 630 was used with Canon EF 28-70 and Sigma 70-210. My current camera is Canon 50D. I was going to buy new lenses for a course I will be attending.

Any Canon EOS lens will work on the new Canon DSLR's.
The Canon lenses before the AF Autofocus era were called Canon FD manual focus lenses.
They are the lenses that will not fit on Canon EOS Cameras.
The transition to EOS from FD occured in 1988.
Canon did a major thing no other camera manufacturer have ever done before.
They totally abandoned their whole FD lens system.
The Canon FD lens system is an orphaned line.
Unlike Nikon who looked after it's lens system. The new Nikon D7000 will be able to use Nikon lenses as far back as 40 years ago, but that's another story for another time...

[ricktas]

Canon did a major thing no other camera manufacturer have ever done before.

Note that Olympus have also done that with its determination to stick with the 4/3rds system.

[jjphoto]

The age of a lens is no indication of the quality of the lens. Lens design has certainly improved over the years but not that much except where zoom lenses are concerned.

For example, you can buy an $80 Olympus 50/1.4 (a 20 year old lens) and fit this to a Canon with a $20 Olympus to Canon EF adapter. This will give you stunning image quality and cost you about $100 all up! Old can be VERY good if you know what you are doing.

I buy and keep lenses but digital bodies come and go. They don't matter very much IMHO.

JJ

[Rits]

Most old lenses will work, but often only in full manual mode (they dont have autofocus motors). Not sure with Canon, but Nikon lets us set all the lens preferences in camera, so the camera knows what the lens is and its limitations.

Your lenses, it is more about the nomenclature than the zoom. Somewhere on the lens barrel it will say something like F3.5-f5.6 etc. Tell us that information and we can give you more details about the lens

Thankyou for that. The Canon Lens says "Canon zoom lens EF-28-70mm 1:3.5-4.5" and the Sigma says 70-210mm and around the rim it reads 22 16 11 5.6 then bold line and on the R of the line it is 5.6 R 22. From these numbers lines reach up and meet at a point above thenm making it look like a pyramid. Does that make sense?

[Rits]

I bit the bullet after trying out my old lenses and having a store check them out. They were still in good nick but I thought if I was going to be serios about this I should go for new technology so I purchased a Tamron AF 17-50mm F/2.8 with IS and a Canon EF 70-300 f.4.5-5.6 IS USM, to go with my Canon EFS 60mmf/2.8 Macro. I am happily snapping away learning how to use i tall. Now all I need is a tripod and carry bag.

[Cage]

AS JJ said above, camera bodies come and go, but buy the right lens and you have a friend for a very long time.

The same applies to tripods and heads. I've just bought my fourth tripod, the one I should have bought originally.

A search on this forum will come up with some great ideas on what to look for in your tripod and head.

Good luck.

Kevin

[TOM]

Canon did a major thing no other camera manufacturer have ever done before.
They totally abandoned their whole FD lens system.
The Canon FD lens system is an orphaned line.

Nikon is doing this also, but with their cameras.

[Cage]

Strangely enough the better FD mount lens are now being highly sought after, thanks to adaptors to mount them on almost anything.

Cheers

Kevin

[ZedEx]

The FD lenses are sought after because they are a totally dead line. Canon flipped to the EF mount some time ago, so they don't fit anything without an adapter. Due to this, they are quite cheap, so kids are using them on their Olympus PEN slr hybrid cameras. And something to do with focusing as well

Strangely enough the better FD mount lens are now being highly sought after, thanks to adaptors to mount them on almost anything.

Cheers

Kevin

[Roosta]

If you are after a tripod, not sure on your funds, but like Trublubiker mentioned, well worth getting it correct first time, Speak to Stu from Quality Camera Sales (Site Sponsor) he has a ripper sale on the Manfrotto 190XPRO + 804 head and bag. Can't go wrong with that. Try this link. http://www.qualitycamera.com.au/manf...143c1159f9c509

And with lens, try using the search tab, try entering something related to a lens you might like the sound/look of and also try the Canon tab under teh Forum Heading. You'll be happy with your 50D, nice fast glass, and you'll only need practice practice practice.

Happy snapping.

[darkmerlin]

I bought an adapter to fix my old Olympus OM 50mm 1.4 to my 7D but it's a bit hit and miss to get the focus right even with though the adapter has the focus chip.
It seems that when it says it's in focus it actually isn't so it's wait for the focus light and then give it just a bit more.
I did some camera lens calibration trials to compensate but ran out of adjustment at 20, it probably needs 30
I think I'll just suck it up and get the niffy fifty as I've already oofed a couple of what would have been nice indoor shots.

[jjphoto]

I bought an adapter to fix my old Olympus OM 50mm 1.4 to my 7D but it's a bit hit and miss to get the focus right even with though the adapter has the focus chip.
It seems that when it says it's in focus it actually isn't so it's wait for the focus light and then give it just a bit more.
I did some camera lens calibration trials to compensate but ran out of adjustment at 20, it probably needs 30
I think I'll just suck it up and get the niffy fifty as I've already oofed a couple of what would have been nice indoor shots.

Honestly, forget the focus confirm chips. I know that some people swear by them but I think they are a waste of time and money.

If you have a camera with an excellent viewfinder, such as 1ds series bodies (my 1ds2 is brilliant for manual focusing), then focusing with the ground glass should be fine. I don't know what the 7d's are like in this respect. Even the 5d2 is OK with the eg-s screen, although it is very dark and a pain in the a$$ in that respect. Live view is even better but it's not well suited to many types of photography. 95% of the shots I take are on a tripod so live view works best for me and I use a large range of alt lenses (in fact I don't really use Canon lenses very often).

JJ

[darkmerlin]

Honestly, forget the focus confirm chips. I know that some people swear by them but I think they are a waste of time and money.

If you have a camera with an excellent viewfinder, such as 1ds series bodies (my 1ds2 is brilliant for manual focusing), then focusing with the ground glass should be fine. I don't know what the 7d's are like in this respect. Even the 5d2 is OK with the eg-s screen, although it is very dark and a pain in the a$$ in that respect. Live view is even better but it's not well suited to many types of photography. 95% of the shots I take are on a tripod so live view works best for me and I use a large range of alt lenses (in fact I don't really use Canon lenses very often).

JJ

Have to agree with you re the AF confirm chip (in general) however my main problem is at f1.4. The AF confirm works ok at f4 (greater depth of field) and I've also found that live view is the best way to get focus correct when shooting at f1.4