Really old lenses, want to use with 450D?

The screw fittings are probably m42, in which case you can get adaptors off ebay for a few pounds. The bayonet one may be a non-starter though! If you puit some pics up I'm sure someone will be of more help!

Chris
 
If the macro has some means of closing down the aperture, you should be able to use it for close-up just fine. Even if the adapter means the lens won't focus on infinity, it will be okay for close work - it will just focus a little closer than intended.

You don't need autofocus for macro and most people switch it off anyway. Just focus up roughly and rock your body very gently back and forth until the sharpest point is where you want it.

The screw fitting will almost certainly be M42 (also known as Pentax Screw) but you need to ID the bayonet - a pic will do it. Lots of adapters and advice from here http://www.srb-griturn.com/camera-body-to-lens-adaptors-eg-nikon-lens-onto-a-canon-body-324-c.asp
 
I do not think that I would bother with very old lens. They were not so hot for quality.As a comparison todays Canon 50mm F1.4 is far superior to the 50 1.4 FD lens. fully open. I have a pentacon m42 50mm that is pin sharp around the periphery and soft in the centre.
 
classcams said:
I do not think that I would bother with very old lens. They were not so hot for quality.As a comparison todays Canon 50mm F1.4 is far superior to the 50 1.4 FD lens. fully open. I have a pentacon m42 50mm that is pin sharp around the periphery and soft in the centre.
Click to expand...

I totally disagree, I have 6 old lenses I use frequently and all of them are sharper than most sub £200 lenses I owned.

And you cannot compare a Pentacon 50mm that you can buy for £10 with a £250 Canon 50mm f1.4!!!
 
Well search the net and other forums and you'll find lots of people using old MF lens on new digital bodies as some of them are still optically superb. Putting them on a crop body like a 450D can work even better as due to the smaller crop sensor you're cherry picking the best, sharpest area of the lens' performance.

I've got 2x M42 lenses I've used on my 450D; a Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar 135mm f/3.5 [which is a cracking lens] and a Vivitar 28mm f/2.8 [which I've barely used in truth]. I've also got an old Praktica 35mm SLR and got an adaptor to mount the Praktica B type Pentacon 50-250mm lens I got with it too.

AF has got us all a bit lazy of course, and I wouldn't want to shoot wildlife, sports or airshows in MF, but for portraits and landscapes it can work well.

Focusing can be a pain on DSLRs as their viewfinders don't offer split prism focusing or similar aids, but there are lens adapters [like mine] that will offer focus confirmation if you wish - check out eBay.

There are pitfalls, metering is a bit unpredictable in my experience, and you need to focus wide open and then close down to your required aperture before you shoot, but you can get some nice results from old MF lens for little outlay.
 
Bayonet fitting could be Canon FD?

I've been using an old Canon FD 50mm 1.8 that I got for about £20 on my GF1 and I'm pretty pleased with the results.
 
Sadly FD lenses are about the only lenses that won't happily mount on EOS cameras :thinking:

Could be one of any number of bayonet type mount lenses though.
 
If you can find out what the bayonet fitting is then there will be an adapter for it. Manual lenses are great fun and the quality is usually on par or higher than most modern AF lenses.
 
classcams said:
I do not think that I would bother with very old lens. They were not so hot for quality.As a comparison todays Canon 50mm F1.4 is far superior to the 50 1.4 FD lens. fully open. I have a pentacon m42 50mm that is pin sharp around the periphery and soft in the centre.
Click to expand...

Got to disagree with this I have 4 M42 lenses that I use on my 350D with an adapter and all are really sharp once stopped down from the maximim aperture,I have a 28mm,50mm,135mm and a 300mm for which I paid a total of under £50.just one of those lenses in EF mount would be at least twice that
 
Using old lenses on modern DSLRs is great. I knew nothing about the subject till a few months ago, now I'm hooked.

Some lenses are pretty hopeless, mostly the zooms. Primes tend to be very good in comparison. For the costs involved they are really worth trying out.

You can use FD mount lenses but the adapter required normally has an element in it and this reduces the quality.

It may be a Tamron Adaptall lens, not FD mount. The screw mount lenses sound like M42 as already stated, the adapters for these are very cheap. I personally wouldnt bother with the more expensive focus confirm adapters, as everywhere I've researched them seem to suggest they aren't that accurate.
 
i,ve had no problem with focus confirm adapters, I use both and prefer the af confirm one.
 
The bayonet lens looks like an Olympus OM mount, the screw mount should be M42 - although it looks larger, but it's hard to judge scale in these pics, could you measure the diameter?
 
I agree with Deckard that the bayonet looks like a n Olympus OM mount, I would say the screw mount is a 'T' mount, or a Tamron Adaptall.

Dave.
 
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