CRAZY Question

GreenSlime89 · Jul 4, 2009

Right I'm looking to buy a cheap, wide-angle lens for my 20D. I have very little money for photography (17 and insuring/running a car in Britain >£1k for insurance alone). Motoring rant aside I want a wider lens than my Canon 50mm F/1.8 and I need it to be less than £200 (Ideally much lower than that but let's not be silly!) I'm not hugely concerned about auto-focus as the lens will be used for things that won't move (LANDSCAPES!!)

So as usual I peruse the tinterweb, seeing what wonderful deals are going on just now. Alas there are no new wide-angle lenses that match my empty wallet. So I've gone down the line of second hand lenses, with no joy. So I get to thinking, and look at Canon FD lenses and FD mounted lenses. There must be some kind of adapter that would allow me to use such lenses on my camera. I've found a couple:

FD/EF Film - Digital Lens Mount adapter 350D 400D Canon on eBay (end time 29-Jul-09 13:27:56 BST)

Canon FD Lens to Canon EOS Mount Adaptor 50D 500D 450D on eBay (end time 29-Jul-09 16:21:37 BST)

Sigma 600 mm f8 Canon FD + FD/EOS adapter on eBay (end time 09-Jul-09 10:00:55 BST)

Okay the third one isn't just the adapter but hey, if it stays at about that price... :lmao:

So are these adapters any good? (I'm aware there will be degradation of IQ using them but if it's kept to a reasonable level and can be minimized by stopping down then I'm happy)

Has anyone else done this and what are your thoughts?

What do you guys think of the Makinon 24mm MF lens and the Sigma 24mm MF lens?

Camera Shop Perth. Scotland UK. Optical and Digital Imaging Specialists

Thanks in advance,

Ross

JustAnEngineer · Jul 4, 2009

Is the £140 EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS wide enough? The £300 Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 Di-II is over your budget.

GreenSlime89 · Jul 5, 2009

I just looked at the lens on jessops and this lens is £10 more!

http://www.jessops.com/online.store...n/products/Canon/EF 28mm f2.8-12114/Show.html

Dunno if I should go with a fast prime or the IS zoom. I have the 50mm F/1.8 Mk II so I'm swaying towards the 28mm F/2.8
If I went with that one and eventually upgraded to a full frame I could use that lens

What do you guys think?

JustAnEngineer · Jul 5, 2009

GreenSlime89 said:
If I went with that one and eventually upgraded to a full frame I could use that lens What do you guys think?

If 28mm (or 24mm) is wide enough for what you want, cheap prime lenses tend to have significantly better optical quality than inexpensive zoom lenses.

Compared to the cost of a £2000 EOS 5D Mk. II camera body, the £140 (new) price of the EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS lens looks like a disposable cost if you do eventually upgrade. Because this is the standard kit lens for the EOS 1000D, 450D and 500D, you can likely find a lightly-used one for a reasonable price from someone who has upgraded to a faster lens (like the Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 Di-II, Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8 DC HSM or Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM lenses). Here are a couple of reviews of the kit lens:
Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS - Test Report / Review
Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Lens Review

Here are a couple of reviews of the EF 28mm f/2.8 lens:
Canon EF 28mm f/2.8 - Test Report / Review
Canon EF 28mm f/2.8 Lens Review

The EF 24mm f/2.8 may be over your price range:
Canon EF 24mm f/2.8 - Test Report / Review
Canon EF 24mm f/2.8 Lens Review

Dao · Jul 5, 2009

I read about FD to EOS adapter before. And found that the adapter may need a lens on the it because the flange-to-focal-plane distances FD lens is shorter than EOS. As a result, the adapter will act as a multipliers. So the focal length is not the same as it is multipy by, lets say, 1.4x. If the lens is removed from the adapter, it will act as a extension tube with a great chance that you cannot focus to infinity.

What about a the EF-S 18-55mm IS kit lens? Anyone locally selling the lens? Since a lot of people bought the kit and later one went with a better lens may try to sell the kit lens.

Big Mike · Jul 6, 2009

I'd also suggest the 18-55mm 'kit' lens. Get the IS version if you can, but if not, the older version will do.

These lenses aren't great, nor are they terrible. They do have a bad reputation (mostly on the internet) but they really aren't too bad...especially for the price. These usually come with the Rebel or XXD camera models...so there should be an abundance of them on the used market.

GreenSlime89 · Jul 6, 2009

I was looking on ebay and if I save a wee while longer I can get the Sigma 15-30mm F/3.5-4.5 EX DG for £250, however I googled it and found it new for £237. Is this a good deal and a good lens? I'm sure I'd heard that the kit lens with canon's were paperweights?

Big Mike · Jul 6, 2009

I honestly don't think that the Sigma 15-30mm is any better than the Canon 18-55mm.

Battou · Jul 6, 2009

Those FD/EF adaptors are usually rather poor quality due largely to what Dao said, even the ones made by canon where said to suck despite being the best of them. To be downright blunt with you, you would be better off picking up an FD body to use with the FD lenses and letting that 20D ride the shelf untill finances are a little better. But that is just my personal oppinion.