Old Manual Lenses On Canon 7D

[R.Y.K. LEE]

Hi everyone,

I am new to the forum, and I was wondering if anyone can give me any advice or share their experiences with me about using old manual focus lenses on the Canon 7D.

I was looking on Ebay and found that they seem to have a vast variety of old manual primes for sale at ridiculously cheap prices. I'm not sure what the quality of the pictures will turn out like, but at £10-£20 I won't be complaining too much.

I've read that even though the Canon FD lenses are made by Canon, they are not great for the Canon EOS mount. That they require an adaptor with another piece of glass in it, which will degrade the picture quality of the lens overall. While adaptors for example, M42, Pentax mounts are just mounts with no additional glass.

Does anyone here use these types of lenses on their 7D's and if yes, which ones are you using and are they any good? I also seen adaptor mounts that have been chipped, apparantly they give focus confirmation etc. Does anyone here use one with a chip on the mount? Many thanks in advance.

Ray.

 

[matt2martin]

Hi Ray,

Welcome to the forum. I've not used M42 lenses but I've used old Olympus OM lenses on my 400D and they are good.

This article might have some more information that could be useful to you:
http://www.bobatkins.com/photography/eosfaq/manual_focus_EOS.html

I've got a chipped adapter and the focus confirmation works as you would expect but the viewfinder on the 400D can be a bit small for very precise manual focusing - definatley not as good as the OM10's split prism the lenses came from.

Thanks,
Matt

 

[R.Y.K. LEE]

Thanks Matt,

That is exactly what I was looking for, I've only recently developed an interest in manual lenses as I came straight in to digital in 2005 with the Nikon D70s from compact P&S'. So I'm a novice in this area.

Is the focus confirmation accurate or does it need some degree of tweaking? Any problems with the mount confirming focus lock then finding it to be back/forward focusing in the end shot?

Ray.