canon lens mount

[Abby Rose]

Canon changed the way that lenses attach to their cameras, right? So if you had an old lens, it wouldnt attach to a new body at all?

 

[Josh66]

How old?

The EF mount was introduced in 1987. If it's older than that (FD mount), it won't fit.

As long as it's the EF mount, it's fine.

Is this a hypothetical question, or do you actually have an old Canon lens?

 

[reznap]

FD lenses won't mount and don't adapt easily either because of the difference in flange distance. They make adapters with a glass element (looks like a telephoto extender) but they're not the greatest.

Much easier to adapt old Nikon lenses.. I use a few with $15 fotodiox (ebay) adapters. There are a lot of other type of mount lenses that will adapt easily as well.

 

[BuS_RiDeR]

EF-S lenses will not fit with an older camera that only supports EF mount lenses. However, the newer Canon's that support EF-S will also support the older EF lenses.

 

[Big Mike]

EF-S lenses will not fit with an older camera that only supports EF mount lenses. However, the newer Canon's that support EF-S will also support the older EF lenses.

EF-S lenses also won't fit onto new models that are full frame or APS-H sized (5D, 1D, 1Ds)

But yet, Canon changed their mount when they went to auto focus in 1987. Before that, their SLR lenses were 'FD' and worked on manual focus cameras like the AE-1, T-50 etc.
Their new (and still current) line of cameras are the EOS auto focus cameras. Their new line of lenses are 'EF' (and now EF-S).
All EF lenses will work on all EOS cameras. EF-S lenses only work on certain EOS cameras (the ones with APS-C sized sensors).
The one odd ball being the 10D, which has a crop sensor but doesn't work with EF-S lenses.

 

[Abby Rose]

hypothetical for now, though I was given a broken film camera (not old) that probably is not fixable for a reasonable price (can you sell these things for parts?). I believe he is giving me the lens on it also (I'm picking it up this weekend; I havent seen it yet), though, and I wondered if it would be useful were I to buy a digital. Thats my plan for the end of this year.

 

[Josh66]

What model is the camera?

 

[BuS_RiDeR]

EF-S lenses will not fit with an older camera that only supports EF mount lenses. However, the newer Canon's that support EF-S will also support the older EF lenses.

EF-S lenses also won't fit onto new models that are full frame or APS-H sized (5D, 1D, 1Ds)

Yes that is true. Thank you Big Mike, I forgot to include it in my post.

 

[sobolik]

[SIZE=+3]SYSTEM COMPATIBILITY[/SIZE]

Nikon​

Most Nikon camera and lenses made since 1959 are compatible with each other.​

The Nikon system is so renowned for its multi-decade interoperability that I have a Nikon System Compatibility page discussing it.​

Canon​

Canon cameras can use Nikon lenses, but Nikon cameras can't use Canon lenses.​

On the other hand,


Canon flushed compatibility down the toilet in 1985 when it created a new and completely incompatible system of AF cameras and lenses called EOS. Nothing works together before or after the great divide of 1985.

​

To Canon's credit, the new EOS system is a better design than the old Nikon mount, but



old Canon FD manual focus lenses, once promoted as "timeless" by Canon, are useless today on modern Canon cameras.



Contrast this to Nikon, where just about every lens ever made works swell, with few limitations, on every brand new camera.​

Every Canon AF lens works on every Canon AF camera, including the digital SLRs, except for Canon's EF-S lenses, which only work on some of the newest 1.6x cameras. 1980's Canon AF lenses work great on every current Canon camera.




​

Nikon vs. Canon

 

[KmH]

EF-S lenses also won't fit onto new models that are full frame or APS-H sized (5D, 1D, 1Ds)

It was my understanding the EF-S lenses mount just fine on a EF body, since EF lenses can be used on EF-S bodies they have to have the same flange.

The problem being the back of an EF-S lens having a larger diameter than an EF lens and thus it interfers with the movement of the larger EF mirror.

IIRC, I saw a web page that had a tutorial about how to modify the back end of an EF-S lens so it could be used on an EF body.

 

[Josh66]

It was my understanding the EF-S lenses mount just fine on a EF body, since EF lenses can be used on EF-S bodies they have to have the same flange.

Not without modification.

I modified an 18-55 kit lens to fit the EF mount, works great - but there is a possibility of the rear element hitting the mirror. (The rear element sticks out farther on EF-S lenses.)

I use a 1N RS, on which the mirror does not move. For me, there is no risk.
On any other full frame camera, I would not recommend doing that unless you know what you're doing and are willing to accept the risks.

They made it so that it cannot physically mount to prevent mirror damage.

 

[Big Mike]

Yup, as Josh said, they 'idiot proofed' it by making it so that EF-S lenses won't actually mount on non-APS-C cameras....but it's not too hard to get around.

A friend of mine uses a 10-22mm on his 1D and 1Ds quite often. It Vignettes on the wide end, of course, but it's still really wide and he likes the flare characteristics on that lens, better than the 16-35mm or 17-40mm.

 

[Josh66]

At 18mm, the 18-55 (almost) shows the full image circle on my 1N RS.

This is somewhere around 22-24mm:

01131170 by J E, on Flickr

 

[Abby Rose]

the words on the lens (keep in mind that my SLR knowledge is extremely limited, so I could be reading the wrong thing) are "canon zoom lens EF 28-105mm 1:3.5-4.5".

The body, btw, is an eos a2e. Its absolutely enormous. But in the probable event that its not worth the money to fix it, could I possible sell it for parts? I've seen cameras on sites that say "for parts only" but is this some kind of trick and no real people sell cameras for parts? Is there anything I could get from the body if it cant be fixed?

 

[Josh66]

I don't know much about that particular body, but the lens will work fine on any digital body.