Film Lens Compataility With Digital

[blu_billiken]

I have an old AE-1 35mm camera and a digital T1I and i was wondering if my film cameras lens is compatible with my T1I or do I have to buy an adapter.

Thanks

 

[Derrel]

Unfortunately, when Canon dumped the old lens mount in 1987 in favor of the EOS mount, there was no compatibility between the FD mount and the newer autofocus mount. There was a very uncommon adapter made by Canon for a brief while, used mostly on very expensive telephotos lenses, which had a glass element in it and allowed FD mount lenses to operate on EOS bodies. The adapters were not popular, and had as I recall, a 1.3x telephoto factor associated with them.

The adapters were really uncommon. As in hens teeth uncommon. I've only seen one for sale, and I am sort of a lens adapter junkie. So, any Canon FD lenses you have are basically 'useless' on an EOS body unless they are used in a reversed mounting macro-type situation, or mounted in reverse on the front of a telephoto lens to get larger-than-life macro magnifications. On the other hand, Canon EOS bodies DO adapt well to the lenses from many other legacy 35mm systems, like M42, Leica R, Nikon F, Olympus-OM, etc, with limitations of course--like no AF, no programmed modes, no shutter priority mode, manual diaphragm control, etc.

 

[blu_billiken]

Unfortunately, when Canon dumped the old lens mount in 1987 in favor of the EOS mount, there was no compatibility between the FD mount and the newer autofocus mount. There was a very uncommon adapter made by Canon for a brief while, used mostly on very expensive telephotos lenses, which had a glass element in it and allowed FD mount lenses to operate on EOS bodies. The adapters were not popular, and had as I recall, a 1.3x telephoto factor associated with them.

The adapters were really uncommon. As in hens teeth uncommon. I've only seen one for sale, and I am sort of a lens adapter junkie. So, any Canon FD lenses you have are basically 'useless' on an EOS body unless they are used in a reversed mounting macro-type situation, or mounted in reverse on the front of a telephoto lens to get larger-than-life macro magnifications. On the other hand, Canon EOS bodies DO adapt well to the lenses from many other legacy 35mm systems, like M42, Leica R, Nikon F, Olympus-OM, etc, with limitations of course--like no AF, no programmed modes, no shutter priority mode, manual diaphragm control, etc.

thanks for the info, that is too bad that it wont fit an old canon lens but i do have a few older film lenses such as the ones you mentioned so i will try to find adapters for those because i really like the idea of having complete aperture control and i love the old style focus