Here's my beloved Canon 5D that I bought a year ago along with the incredible L series 50mm 1.2 lens. This combination has served me quite well, and has resulted in some stunning images. The 50mm is the only lens I have for my 5D and while I would love to get more of these L series lenses, most of them start at $1000+ and that is just not happening in this economy.
To the rescue is a company called Fotodiox, who manufactures lens adapter rings that allow photographers to mount virtually any older analog lens on a new digital SLR. The simple conversion mounting ring below allows me to mount my collection of Olympus OM series Zuiko lenses to my EOS based Canon 5D.
Here is a 35mm Zuiko lens mounted on the Canon 5D...
...and a 135mm Zuiko I just bought on Ebay for $59...
These old Zuiko lenses are outstanding and will serve me well for years to come. There are thousands and thousands of older high quality lenses out there for very low prices in thrift stores and on the internet. Last year my buddy J Randall Updegrove found me a 28mm Zuiko lens in perfect condition at the Goodwill for $8.
I should mention that when using these older lenses on a digital SLR there is obviously a loss of auto focus function, as well as automatic metering. The way to go is Aperture Priority and a simple twist of the wrist for focusing. Once you go back to manual focusing you will love it, I promise!
Here's a great article from the New York Times about this subject...
Vintage Lenses on Digital Cameras
www.fotodiox.com
7 comments:
hey, this is good news. thanks for 'getting technical' for us!
sharon
I love using old (fast!) manual focus lenses - but I do wish the viewfinders on digital SLRs were still designed to be used to focus as well as compose. I find modern viewfinders are really no where near as good as they used to be on simple old film SLRs for focusing. That doesn't stop me from using manual lenses, but I wish it were easier!
Maybe optical viewfinders are on their way out entirely.
thanks for the props !
I have a thing for the older, (and often faster, sharper, more durable) lenses too. And while I sport two canon EF series lenses (24-105 L series and a 70-300 Diffractive Optic) I think there's something about the 'jewelry' quality that appeals to me in the so-called vintage lenses. They are like the baubles you'd see in some fashionable jewelry store on 5th Avenue. Oh, and as long as discerning photographers need to look critically at their work, there will always be the need for some kind of viewfinder (optical or electronic. Great article Chris
I agree Robert... I have never found anything better than the simple split image focus method of traditional film SLRs. It is fool proof.
But Northstar Orion can attest to our many debates over Electronic vs. Optical viewfinders. I can not stand to use an electronic viewfinder, and he swears by them.
Electronic rules ! For one reason----you are actually looking at the file as you would see it exactly on your monitor on your studio desktop (only smaller admittedly) It's so much easier to examine critically, and of course there is no mirror to interrupt the 'decisive moment'.
bah...you will never convince me.
GREAT information! I have some older lenses that I may just try getting an adapter for to use on my 5D. Thanks for the info!
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