Canon Lenses on Sony A7Riii - any real world experiences?

sirch

sirch

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My main Canon body (6D) is getting quite old now and it doesn’t look like there is anything very sparkling in Canon’s future so I am considering upgrading to a Sony A7Riii. Like most people I have quite a lot of money tied up in good lenses and the fact that there are Canon-Sony adaptors is one of the reasons for looking at Sony. I know there are quite a few articles about this on the web but there seem to be some mixed views on it, so I was wondering if anyone on here has any experience of using Canon L lenses on Sony, particularly an A7Riii? I shoot anything and everything so I am looking for a good all-rounder, when I need fast AF I will probably still use the 7Dii so I’m not overly bothered about AF speed as long as it is reasonable and achieves a good lock. I do have a Canon-MFT adaptor that I bought for fun really and find that the little Olympus battery is drained really quickly by moving the big/heavy AF on the L lenses, is this an issue for Sony? Yes I know Sony battery life got better with the iii versions but how does it cope with a Canon AF motor? – that is the kind of issue that I’d like some real world experience on.

I did think about hiring a body but at around £200 for a weekend’s hire it feels like (apart from the hassle) I could buy a body and sell it again if I don’t like it with a similar financial penalty.
 
In December I switched from a Canon 6D to a Sony A7 III.
I have the Sigma MC-11 adapter for the A7 III to use with Canon 135L, Canon 100mm Macro L IS and Canon 50mm F1.8 STM and all work great for photo stills using eye tracking focus. I also use the adapter with EF mount Sigma 24 F1.4 and Sigma 12-24 F4.5 to 5.6 (older model lens) and they work great with eye AF on the Sony too.

I have upgraded to the Sony 135mm F1.8 and 55mm F1.8 now but not because the AF didn't work - it's just easier switching between lenses with the Sony mount and they do offer better image quality.
 
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Thanks @SDK^ that's good to know, I've got a couple of Sigma lens too so its useful to know that they are likely to work
 
sirch said:
Any idea why that would be the case, is the A7 AF not so good in low light?
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It's not the camera, more the nature of adapting lenses.

When I transitioned I had an arsenal of Canon EF glass on my A7III, I used them all for a year and some are better than others.

The 100L was the worst, focus with that is like 20% chance, it just hunts and hunts.
The rest are okay.
24L focus goes off the radar when it is dark.
85L was sharper than ever due to the Eye-AF.
35L and 50A was almost like native
135L I didn't try
20A/1.4 was fine.
16-35L, 24-70L were also okay.
45TSE is better on the Sony due to EVF.

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Thanks @Raymond Lin impressive set of lenses there, sounds like mine will be fine. It'll be a month or two before I've got the cash, so a bit of time to mull things over
 
My one experience was with the Sigma 12-24, and it was unreliable, possibly due to either the lens or adapter being defective. The lens also displayed extreme decentrering, possibly down the adaptor not being perfectly flat.

Some get good results, so I'd probably do what RL did and see which combos work.
 
My wife used a A7R3 for just over a year with a few different canon lenses on the MC-11 adapter and loved it. Especially the 85mm 1.4 IS L and the Sigma 35mm ART. Worst lens on that camera adapted was the 100mm Macro L which was near impossible to get useful results at a wedding.
 
Whilst I don't have Sony @sirch I did the same with my canon lenses and my Fuji X-T2.
I got the fringer so I could use the 70-200L F4 and/or 70-300L rather than buying a Fuji zoom.
To be honest it feels like a false economy, I would probably have been better off with the cheap fuji 50-230. To the point where if I'm planning on using the zooms, I use old canon bodies instead.

Canon are rumoured to be bringing out a hybrid EF & R body (apparently the mount is the same size, it's just the contacts (shrug, dunno)) If the 6D is still working maybe worth hanging on to see what they bring out this year?
 
The 35 ART adapts very well via MC11, if you have it... but Id recommend selling that and buying the native E mount version as the switch wouldnt cost much. Did you buy your glass used? If so theres usually not much penalty when selling.
 
Have used the following adapted with mc11 with a9 and a7iii:

Canon 17-40 f4. Didn't miss a beat.
Sigm 35mm f1.4 very good.
Canon 85mm f1.2 in good light more accurate than on Canon body.
Canon 135mm f2 very good, some hunting at distance.
Tamron 24-70 (Mark 1) very good in good light, unreliable in otherwise.
 
Thanks all really good to hear people's experiences

LC2 said:
Whilst I don't have Sony @sirch
Canon are rumoured to be bringing out a hybrid EF & R body (apparently the mount is the same size, it's just the contacts (shrug, dunno)) If the 6D is still working maybe worth hanging on to see what they bring out this year?
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The 6D is still going strong and I really like it, fits my hand perfectly so it could be worth waiting but any new model is gonna have to be very good to get close to the specs of the A7Riii, I know specs aren't everything but the EOS R is a bit of a way off the A7Riii which has better dynamic range and noise figures.

twist said:
Did you buy your glass used? If so theres usually not much penalty when selling.
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Yes I bought pretty much all of it used but it's not so much selling what I've got as acquiring replacements. I'm assuming that it needs to be Sony G to replace or better equivalent Canon L
 
sirch said:
Thanks all really good to hear people's experiences



The 6D is still going strong and I really like it, fits my hand perfectly so it could be worth waiting but any new model is gonna have to be very good to get close to the specs of the A7Riii, I know specs aren't everything but the EOS R is a bit of a way off the A7Riii which has better dynamic range and noise figures.


Yes I bought pretty much all of it used but it's not so much selling what I've got as acquiring replacements. I'm assuming that it needs to be Sony G to replace or better equivalent Canon L
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Not really, there are a lot of excellent Sony and 3rd party lenses, what canon glass do you have?
 
sirch said:
Yes I bought pretty much all of it used but it's not so much selling what I've got as acquiring replacements. I'm assuming that it needs to be Sony G to replace or better equivalent Canon L
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The quality of 3rd party and some non-G glass is surprisingly high, and while there are a few lemons in FE mount, most are probably either as good or surpass L standard. The downside is that because they're all new designs, the prices are relatively high still, although the second hand market is developing.
 
sirch said:
The 6D is still going strong and I really like it, fits my hand perfectly so it could be worth waiting but any new model is gonna have to be very good to get close to the specs of the A7Riii, I know specs aren't everything but the EOS R is a bit of a way off the A7Riii which has better dynamic range and noise figures.
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That‘s exactly where I was too.
I had Canon lenses and liked the RP design and features but the sensor is straight out of the 6D MKII which was universally hated when that camera launched many years ago.
 
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