CarsonSmitty Loc: Carson City Nevada

I have a new Canon 70d, and several old Pentax, Canon, and Minolta prime lenses. I believe there are adapters which would allow my EF body to accept the old screw mount (and bayonet mount) lenses. Is this a good idea? or a waste of money? Is it worth it to deal with loss of auto focus or f-stop control? Any pros or cons I should consider? Thanks

SirMontgomery Loc: Seattle

My favorite lens on my t3i was a pentax smc 50mm f/1.7. It was insanely sharp wide open. If you can shoot manually without to much fuss go for it.

cthahn

You will have to learn how to use your camera in manual mode.

rjaywallace Loc: Wisconsin

If the lens is a digital lens, such as a Pentax lens from a former K70 for example, you might consider purchasing a "Metabones" adapter that will give you full functionality - including auto-focus - on your Canon camera. Look at ads for Metsbones adapters as well as YouTube videos re Metabones. If the lens is an old film era lens, keep in mind that you focused manually with that lens all the time back in those days, so the adapter doesn't make it any harder than it was back then. Film camera owners focused manually for many, many years.

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

Aren't the metabones adapters for going the other way? Allowing a canon or Nikon lens to be used on specific cameras?

Carusoswi

Until Minolta introduced their AF bodies in around 1985, manual focus was all we had. I'm thinking it was a little easier in those days. Viewfinder screens were more MF friendly back then, and most SLRs were full frame (I recall some half frame cameras, but was not that familiar with them).
Good luck with your decision.
Caruso

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I'm not a big fan of lens adapters. I'd sell them on ebay. You'll get money for the lenses and save the money you would have spent on the adapter(s). Then decide what new lens you want.

pecohen Loc: Central Maine

Generally speaking, the adapters work well; I use them on my Sony A6000. But one thing you mention is worth special attention and that is f-stop control. Pairing some lenses with particular cameras can leave you without any control over f-stop. Maybe if your sole interest is in Bokeah shots you will be happy with a wide-open aperture but personally I find that too limiting.

One situation is that you have an older lens with a manual ring for setting f-stop but there is a little pin sticking out of the back of the lens. That pin needs to be depressed for the manual ring to function and in that case you need to have an adapter that depresses that pin. Those adapters are often available but not so easy to find. There are hacks to disable the pin but you need to be careful not to destroy your lens in attempting the hack.

Another situation is when there is no way to manually set the f-stop. In this case, you need an adapter that converts the electrical signals your camera uses to set the f-stop to those that the lens requires. Such an adapter may or may not be available so you need to research that question. Such an adapter is apt to be relatively expensive - probably in the $100 to $500 range but it may also give you auto-focus and other advanced features.

repleo Loc: Boston

Go to the Fotodiox website and browse to see what they have. They have a huge number of adapters for every conceivable combination including manual and some electronic functionality. They even have some tilt/shift adapters. Their 'search' box is not very good so be prepared to browse through page after page to find what you want.

rmorrison1116 Loc: Near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania

The Canon EOS 80D has exceptional metering and AF systems, neither of which will amount to a hill of beans with an adapted FD or FL Canon lens or some old Pentax or Rokkor lens, plus, no split screen. Is Canon glass is cost prohibitive, pick up some decent 3rd party EF mount lenses. Why buy a car with a fantastic sound system and then just listen to talk radio!?

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Waste of money

CarsonSmitty Loc: Carson City Nevada

Thanks folks. I may just sell the lenses. They're old film era lenses, maybe 40 years use and storage. Sounds too complicated to make it worth it.

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

Good decision, as mentioned earlier, the expensive adapters from Metabones are probably not going to mount your old lenses onto a Canon, but could be bought to mount Canon or Nikon lenses onto a Sony anyway.

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

Your options for adapters are somewhat limited. The old screw mount lenses will adapt just fine, and they offer full manual control of focus and aperture, and will focus to infinity.

The Minolta is another story. It is not possible to adapt Minolta AF to Canon, and to have ability to focus to infinity, unless you buy an adapter with extra glass that acts as a teleconverter which makes the lens act as a higher FL lens. But the cost is that image quality suffers. And if that is not enough, you have no control of aperture. Some adapters do have a way to vary aperture, but it is not calibrated. My guess is that tthis is not the way to go.

Peterff Loc: O'er The Hills and Far Away, in Themyscira.

It really depends on the lenses and what you want to use them for. Many of the adapters are inexpensive even with chips for focus confirmation. If you like manual focus lenses or any characteristics of specific lenses then it may be worth a low cost fotodiox adapter or similar. I have an old Helios lens, a Contax and a Nikkor lens that I have adapters for on an EOS camera. They work fine. It is much harder to use old Canon FL / FD / FDn lenses on EOS cameras, but can be done (I have a few) but is essentially a modification - replacing the lens mount. I have a few that I use -FL 55mm f/1.2, FDn 135mm f/2.0 and so on but you have a good reason to take the effort. They all focus to infinity and have full manual aperture control and I enjoy using them periodically.

Generally these are not an alternative to modern auto focus lenses, but simply for creative purposes. Most would probably consider them to be more trouble than they are worth.