CCTV lenses & Canon 550D

Elines

Elines

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Chris
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(I guess the answer is 'No' because I have already searched this thread and not found any references, and wider google searches didn't seem to cover it/make any sense to me but .....)

... I have heard some talk of using cheap (£20 - £30) CCTV lenses on a 'normal' camera body, by using an adapter.

?anyone know if you can use CCTV lenses on a Canon 550D - at that price manual adjustment would be fine, but is it doable without damaging the camera body and would you get any worthwhile results?
 
Yes it will work but with most CCTV lenses you will get huge vignetting. I work in Industrial Vision Systems and with large sensors we often use Nikon lenses as well as those by specialist Industrial Vision companies.

Also cheap CCTV lenses have poor line pair characteristics so you will get a loss of image quality
 
Yup, they'll probably only cover a fraction of the sensor.

I tried one on my MFT G1 and it vignetted so it'll only do so more on APS-C.

If you want cheap lenses another way to go would be to use old SLR lenses such as Olympus Zuiko. I tried mine on my 5D and they performed very well via a cheap (£5 or so) adapter bought off ebay. Manual focus isn't easy on a DSLR though, unless the subject is big in the frame. You can however zone focus or hyperfocal. You can also get adapters that'll give focus confirmation but they may be a few £ more.

If you shop around you should be able to get a 50mm f1.8 for under £20 and a 28mm f2.8 for under £30. 135mm f3.5's are also quite cheap. Anything other than thouse lenses may mean paying more but the cheap ones could be all you'll need. I tried all three of those on my 5D and the results were good.
 
Are you talking about C-mount (and D-mount) lenses? The ones on eBay usually advertised for NEX and M4/3 mounts?
 
Elines said:
... I have heard some talk of using cheap (£20 - £30) CCTV lenses on a 'normal' camera body, by using an adapter.
Click to expand...

Usually on a m43 camera or a mirrorless APS-C camera (Nex for example, or whatever Sony are calling them now):

http://www.tested.com/tech/photography/457023-living-photography-fujians-35mm-f17-cctv-lens/

http://www.lensporn.net/2011/12/review-fujian-35mm-f17-c-mount-cctv.html


More of a novelty lens than anything else - but for a bit of cheap fun, why not. Not sure about an Canon adapter though - a quick ebay search on ebay for a C-mount to Canon EF adapter brings up this: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/C-Mount-M...OS-EF-Macro-Camera-Adapter-Ring-/261071494148 but it does say "Available focal distance: approx. 5cm-70cm/ 2.0''-28'' - which is a bit limiting!

This is the lens - Fujian 35mm F1.7 Lens C-mount: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/35mm-f1-7...EX-5R-NEX-F3-NEX-7-NEX-5C-Black-/281253332525
 
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Mr Perceptive - Thanks thought I was too good to be true

Woof woof/Alan - thanks for confirming the vignetting and also for giving an alternative. Might be looking into that a bit more.

Micehorns/Chris - if your question is addressed to me I can't answer - I only know I have a Canon 550D - don't know about the mount type
 
Applemint/Mark - I think you posted as I was replying as above.

Thanks also for this link to e-bay - even if I had found it I wouldn't have known it was the adapter for the cheapo CCTV lenses. Looking more doable - now would like to see some pictures shot with tis set up before I spend £s:).
 
The flange distance is way too short for EOS mounts.

If you're looking for the CCTV effect and want to use a Canon, I'd have a look at some m42 lenses. I have a £6 135mm f/2.8 Prinzflex that gives that CCTV/C-mount/Toy lens look - swirly bokeh, low contrast and a lot of flare. People say a lot of Helios' give this effect but I've never seen it from mine. At least with most m42 lenses, you can always use them normally without any vignetting if you want 'serious' shots. There's a fellow on here with good knowledge on manual focus lenses and knows other lenses that will give the effect ( I think his name is ManualFocusG?).
 
Thanks for the further info and suggestions - I try hard not to fall into the trap of buying kit (by which I really mean expensive kit) that I won't then use much. I'll look up what M42 lenses are tomorrow evening as out all day - thanks.

NB I had a nifty fifty Canon lens for Christmas and it is the only lens I have used since then - so getting my money's worth from that.:)

EDIT - not looking for a particular effect, rather am looking for cheap lenses that I can play about with and not waste too much money if I don't use them.
 
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There are a few old lens types you can use with your 550D, the easiest to find are M42. Having a rummage around charity shops can turn them up for a couple of pounds. Most at that price will be cheap, mass produced lenses sold through High Street chains (Prinzgalaxy was a brand name used by Dixons for lenses bought from various Japanese makers, for example) but you sometimes find a good bargain. I've picked up a handful of lenses for £5/each or less over the last couple of years, they're not all stellar performers - but those with optical weaknesses can certainly be said to have character.

I may have a spare adapter somewhere..
 
Elines said:
......................... I'll look up what M42 lenses are tomorrow evening as out all day - thanks..................................
Click to expand...

Per Wikipedia:

"The M42 lens mount is a screw thread mounting standard for attaching lenses to 35 mm cameras, primarily single-lens reflex models. It is more accurately known as the M42 × 1 mm standard, which means that it is a metric screw thread of 42 mm diameter and 1 mm thread pitch. It was first used in Zeiss' Contax S of 1949; this East German branch of Zeiss also sold cameras under the Pentacon name; after merger with other East German photographic manufacturers, the name Praktica was used. M42 thread mount cameras first became well known in Japan under the Praktica brand, and thus the M42 mount is known as the Praktica thread mount there. Since there were no proprietary elements to the M42 mount, many other manufacturers used it; this has led to it being called the Universal thread mount or Universal screw mount by many. The M42 mount was popularized in the United States by Pentax; thus, it is also known as the Pentax thread mount, despite the fact that Pentax did not originate it.

The Tamron T2 mount also uses a 42mm thread, but the pitch is finer at 0.75 mm, and the T-mount is further from the film plane. The two lens mounts are not interchangeable, and attempting to mount an M42 lens on a T2 mount — and vice-versa — will damage the thread of both the lens and the mount"
​
So ... I can now make more sense of what people have been saying in regard to M42 - I'll keep my eyes open for some.

Thanks for all the responses - just goes to show that even when you think it is probably a bit of a waste of time asking you can sometimes find out some good stuff:).
 
just a thought, but with some screw on adapters you can focus past infinity... Real infinity being half travel...
I'm talking about those cheap 2x tele things you see on ebay
 
pingu666 said:
just a thought, but with some screw on adapters you can focus past infinity... Real infinity being half travel...
I'm talking about those cheap 2x tele things you see on ebay
Click to expand...

Sorry - not sure what the link I s taking me too - seems a general ebay page.:confused:

Also don't understand how you can focus past infinity:confused:
 
its automaticly linked ebay :\
most lenses focus at a distance from the sensor or film plane, if you move lens forward itll focus closer, and infinity is closest to the sensor. some lenses have some slop in them and can actually go past infinity :o

but some cheap screw in teleconverters (and our expensive one) change the focus range, so rather than the thing thats 5metres away being 5meters on the focus scale of the lens (as it should be on a bare lens), its now 2.5meters... which means everything is shifted, you cant focus so close, but you would have a large amount of focus travel after "infinity"to get closer to actual infinity
 
Re link - must be something about the way my PC is set up - I still don't get a link to a page etc of adapters- just a 'ribbon' advertisement and some items I have previously looked at - but thanks for trying.

Thanks also for the clarification - technical things (as with so many other aspects of photography:)) are not my strongpoint.
 
Links to ebay are added automatically by the forum software when you type the word ebay in a post (affiliate links) not by the poster.
 
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applemint said:
Links to ebay are added automatically by the forum software when you type the word ebay in a post (affiliate links) not by the poster.
Click to expand...

Ahhh - OK - thanks - I hadn't realised that.
 
Chris, links in green are automatically added to posts that mention some keywords (like amazon ). Links deliberately added by posters are dark blue, bold and italic (like this). Bit of a PITA and can seem like a poster is endorsing a product or brand BUT it helps fund the forum so is a cross we have to bear!
 
Thanks Nod - I had seen some mention of this somewhere but my mistakes on this thread have made it 'stick'
 
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