Great old lenses on Canon EOS mount?

June 7, 2012 3:17 PM

John Carey uses an old Olympus 55mm 1.8 lens on his Canon 5D with beautiful results. Which other similar old lenses have you found great on a Canon EOS mount?
posted by jgwong to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (10 answers total)

Best answer: Leica R (not M, you rangefinder people are out of luck) works nicely when used with an EF mount adapter. Fred Miranda has over a hundred pages of these lenses. Don't forget to check the massive Leica to Canon compatibility chart before buying.
posted by Brian Puccio at 3:53 PM on June 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Pentax Super-Takumar 50mm f1.4 -- Very dreamy, warm, great for portraits- easy-to-find lens at garage sales, etc.

Carl Zeiss Jena Flektagon 35mm f2.4 -- Great sharp lens, good for macro too

I find using vintage glass very rewarding. I am so much better at manual focus now. Old lenses work especially well for video, if you are into that.
posted by 2ghouls at 3:59 PM on June 7, 2012

Best answer: I use tons of older glass on my 5D Mark 2. The oly 50/18 is nice, but the 1.4 is even better.
Also, pick up some Mamiya glass for the m645. It looks amazing on a full-frame EOS body. Cheap too.

Here's some links to ones I did.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lymond/5532225051/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lymond/6277454772/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lymond/6200343696/
posted by damiano99 at 4:09 PM on June 7, 2012

Best answer: the blog of a friend of mine where he talks frequently about "old glass" on Canon cameras (7D in his case).
posted by jepler at 5:01 PM on June 7, 2012

Best answer: Seconding the Super-Takumar 50 1.4. Fantastic lens, but wide-open not the easiest to focus on my 30D. But the bokeh is awesome, and the ageing on the glass will give your shots a unique look.

These were all shot with the Super-Takumar and you can see some where I just missed being in focus: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thecjm/sets/72157629348765500/detail/
posted by thecjm at 1:06 AM on June 8, 2012

Forgot to add - look for adapters with focus confirmation. You're still focusing manually, but the focus indicator lights in your viewfinder will still work. The cheapest adapters don't have this function.
posted by thecjm at 1:08 AM on June 8, 2012

Best answer: I had an 80mm mamiya 645 lens I used with an adapter on my 5D... it was awesome... I wish I had kept it.
posted by j03 at 1:12 AM on June 8, 2012

Best answer: I have tried a Helios-44 and a Helios 44m 58mm f2 on an EOS Rebel with a M42 threaded mount with AF confirmation chip. These have swirly bokeh and there are a few models out there with 6 or 8 bladed apertures. They can be gotten for really cheap prices.
posted by ssri at 8:53 AM on June 8, 2012

Response by poster: Thanks everyone for all the awesome answers and pictures!

jepler, that blog is very useful!
posted by jgwong at 11:13 AM on June 8, 2012

Best answer: Nikkor/Nikon pre-AI, AI glass is great for the money and works great on EOS (fully manual with adapter).
posted by sonicbloom at 6:50 PM on July 18, 2012