bjwags

I have an old camera i got years ago - a Minolta when i first got interested in slr cameras because they took so much better pictures than my old Kodak!! i learned a little bit about f stops and shutter speed but didnt keep up with photography, I now have a Canon EOS 5i and am slowly learning about using it - my main interest is flowers and landscape cuz i dont get out much. But my question is can i use a wide angle lens and a 135mm lens on my Canon camera with some kind of adapter to fit it onto my Canon? And will it take good pictures. I have a 135mm for my Canon but would like a wide angle lens, but dont want to buy one. What i really want is a macro lens but that is on the back burner. I just wondered how the other lens would work on my Canon. I dont know the brand of the lenses but they are not Minolta lenses, will check later for the brand. Thanks for any info.
Betsy

BebuLamar

You may be able to do that but it's not worth it. One thing for sure it will not autofocus. You're better off buying a used wide angle lens made for the Canon.

speters Loc: Grangeville/Idaho

With the right adapter they will work fine and likely produce nice results. Only "drawback", its gonna be all manual!

imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida

All Minolta MD and AF adapters will have a glass element to enable infinity focus - which reduces image quality significantly......worth it - ???

..

Robyn H Loc: MainLine PA

First, it's T5i, a pretty nice camera. Top of the line Rebel a few years ago.
You can't adapt a telephoto into a wide angle, won't work well, don't try.
There are lots and I mean lots of older Canon EF series available on the used market and they don't have to be made by Canon either, both Sigma and Tamron have been making Canon EF mount lenses for years. EF-S mount lenses will also work on the T5i.

I saw several wide angle and wide to telephoto zooms on eBay, both EF and EF-S mount for reasonable to cheap prices. Even some with macro capability. I've been into photography since highschool, many years ago and into digital photography for around 18 years. If you would like me to guide you, PM me. My intent is not to impress, just to honestly help.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Minolta MD mount lenses are not easily adapted for use on modern DSLRs. As another response pointed out, the adapter has to have optics, which arelow quality (at least in affordable adapters... years ago Canon made a really high quality FD to EOS adapter.... that costs $1000 or more, if you can find one). The "corrective" optics of the adapter pretty much ruin the image quality of the lens.

Some exceptions:

1. If the lenses you have happen to be Tamron Adaptall or T-mount (many different brands), or one of several other interchangeable mount designs, it's another matter. Most types of interchangeable mounts are available for EOS. This would not be the case with Minolta branded lenses, but might be with third party (Tamron, Vivitar, yada, yada).

2. Some of the cheap adapters allow you to remove the image-quality-spoiling optics (or a hammer might work), in which case the lens it's used upon will no longer focus to infinity... but it will be closer focusing (although fare from "macro"). You mention wanting a macro lens and might be able to combine with macro extension tubes. The 135mm lens may be a good bet for that purpose. IF you buy macro extension tubes, with a purely manual aperture/manual focus lens like this, the really cheap tubes will do (the tubes without electronic contacts)... but they will not be usable with your Canon lenses.

If you do adapt the lens, look look for the "chipped" adapters. Those chips "tell" the camera there's a lens on it, so Focus Confirmation can work. That's really helpful when trying to focus manually (modern AF cameras are not set up very well for manual focus).

3. It doesn't help you much, but mirrorless cameras such as Canon's M-series or the new Canon EOS R (and Sony, Fuji, Olympus, Panasonic and others) all can easily use adapted lenses, including some of the more difficult ones like Minolta MD-mount (...and Canon FD ...and Konica K/AR ...and various rangefinder lenses).

You didn't specify what wide angle lens you have. Be aware that lenses that were wide on a film camera (such as 35mm or 28mm) are NOT particularly wide or at all wide on a camera like the T5i, which uses a smaller APS-C sensor. BUT, the good news is that if you want a wide angle lens, the Canon EF-S 10-18mm IS STM is just about the least expensive ultrawide zoom made by anyone... typically selling for under $300 (less used or refurbished). It's also one of the smallest, lightest and few that have image stabilization. It's a bit plasticky, but has surprisingly good image quality.

Here's some more info about using older lenses on EOS cameras:

http://www.bobatkins.com/photography/eosfaq/manual_focus_EOS.html

Mark Sturtevant Loc: Grand Blanc, MI

What they said. For your purposes I would suggest an EF nifty 50mm, which will do what you want. Tons of used ones are out there, and they are not very expensive, all things considering. You can also easily fit it with inexpensive extension tubes and convert it to a sharp macro lens. That body and the 50 + tubes is how I got started in macrophotography, and it was a great start, I think.

rdistlerath

You may wish to try extensions tubes with your 135 mm lens. This will make it a nice macro lens for flowers. Then you may another lens for landscapes...perhaps a 50 prime 1.4....This lens will also work very well with extension tubes for macro. This would be an inexpensive way to start out and still provide excellent results.

leftj Loc: Texas

And you can find plenty of them at very reasonable prices. Makes a lot more sense than trying to jakeleg something together.

Mark Sturtevant Loc: Grand Blanc, MI

A point on the 135mm: You can of course use your old manual lenses with extension tubes + what I guess would be an Fd-EOS adapter. The extension tubes don't add glass, so there is not so much an issue with loss of image quality. However...
With a fully manual lens you will not have automatic aperture control and will need to stop down the aperture before taking a picture. For close up photography you generally need to stop down to f/11 and frequently even more to get any depth of field. This starts to significantly dim what you can see in the camera while composing and focusing, even in daylight. In the experience I had with this, playing with old manual lenses on tubes, there were plenty of occasions where I was pretty much shooting blind. Also, the longer lens on extension tubes does not give you the magnification that you will get with a shorter lens on tubes. Of course with an EF 50mm lens + electronically connecting extension tubes (again, not expensive) you will still have full aperture control and also automatic focus if you want that. Manual focus will be better, though.

DrJ

An inexpensive solution is to buy a manual focus macro lens that will work on your Canon EOS with an adapter that does not have a glass element. I bought a very sharp micro Nikkor 55mm f3.5 for about $40 at a camera show and use it on my Canon 7D with an $8 adapter from ebay. I use it to take beautiful photos of flowers, insects, acorns and coins. I prefer MF for macro work. Tamron adaptall wide angle zooms provide decent "macro" with about 2.5 : 1 size reduction. The Tamron adaptall 2 SP 28-80 f3.5-4.2 is reasonably sharp and around $30 on ebay. Adapters range from $8 to $15. Good luck, DrJ

GENorkus Loc: Washington Twp, Michigan

Many macro-shooting pros insist on using manual... as for landscape, that's a different story.

srt101fan

Hi Betsy,
I understand your desire to adapt an old lens to your current camera. I have a number of Minolta MD lenses that I hoped I could use with my Nikon. So I bought a Fotodiox Minolta-Nikon adapter.

Big mistake. As amfoto1 and others have pointed out, the added glass in these adapters is a problem, as are the lens focusing and loss of speed issues. I had read about these limitations but didn't think they were as bad as they turned out to be.

Tread carefully....

Sally D

What a great, considerate response. You set a great example for the rest of us.

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

I agree.
That is the issue the glass element.
If it were my primary use WA lens I would not do it but get an EF or EFs mount lens.
For fun and experiment an adapter is fine. I do the same with very old Canon FD type lenses on my EOS. Work fine but there is a small bit of image quality loss and it took 3 tries to get one that was decent.