HOW TO USE CANON EOS LENSES WITH 35mm adapters

A

Andreas

Well-known member
Hi all

I have asked many times about this and every time I was getting the same anwser: Put the lense in you EOS camera body, change the aperture, remove the lens and then put it back to the 35mm adapter. Since I know how a 35mm still camera works I was feeling a litlle stupid by not uderstanding how the hell the aperture going to be different then full open when I remove the lens from the camera ! Well someone forgot to tell that we select the desired aperture, PRESS THE DEPTH OF FIELD PREVIEW BUTTON and at THE SAME TIME remove the lense from the EOS camera body. And yes this works beautifuly !

best
Andreas
 
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Thanks for the info. I should be getting my M2 soon, and I ordered it with both the Canon and Nikon mounts because I have EOS lenses too. I've been thinking that with the light loss, I'd probably be using the lenses wide open anyway. Is this not the case?
 
Well actually this not the case ! Many lenses in wide open are soft. Shooting
with f2.8, f4, you have much sharper image and your backround is stil blury enought for most of the cases. Most of SLR lenses give their best at f5.6 f.8 f11 so shooting at f1.8 is not what you want if you can avoid it.

Just some thoughts
 
I had wondered this as I have some nice canon lens but that seems like such a pain to have to take it off to adjust the aperature... and also the Nikon lens are so darn cheap. For 500 bucks you'd be able to find a nice collection of used glass that wouuld work for most set-ups. From what I've heard the 35mm adapters are finiky and take a while.. so to add to it the canon removal and that bizness just seems like a lot to deal with..
 
I too ordered with the Eos and nikon mounts as I have some really good eos glass. I would prefer to shoot at 5.6 at all times, as I like to light for that stop. But I suppose most situations that wouldn't work out so well. Although on my last feature we did shoot almost the entire move at 5.6. Some night stuff was more open and a few of the other scenes were more open. We used ND filters outside to be able to shoot at 5.6.
 
If you use Canon EOS lenses, you still have some control over exposure using the ND filters of the HVX, wouldn't you? You can reduce light by 3 or 6 stops.

Otherwise, you can use ND filters in a mattebox for f-stop changes. It is certainly not as practical as using Nikon lenses, but cheaper in most cases. The only thing is that, of course, you would still have a very narrow DOF because the lens would still be at maximum aperture. Usually Canon L lenses are quite sharp at maximum aperture.
 
Endurance_Man said:
Usually Canon L lenses are quite sharp at maximum aperture.
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Yes, the "L" glass is what I have. And those lenses are "tack" sharp (as Barry likes to say) even when they're wide open. I use them open all the time for portrait photography and think they're some of the best lenses you can buy for the money.

The more relevant point is how little DOF you have. I've done portraits where the person's nose is sharp and their eyes are still okay, but by the time you get to their ears, the focus is completely out. I don't think that would work too well in a scene where people are walking from spot to spot. Not without "Superfocuspuller" on set in his cape and superhero tights.
 
tak1108 said:
I would prefer to shoot at 5.6 at all times, as I like to light for that stop. But I suppose most situations that wouldn't work out so well.
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I love this idea of lighting for a particular f-stop. I don't know why, but the idea has never occurred to me, and now seems completely brilliant. It's probably that I've been shooting video so long (with it's extreme DOF). I realize there are limitations and caveats to this idea, but this is definitely going to be in my bag o' tricks from now on! Thanks, T.
 
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Anybody tried mounting a contax or a leica lens on the 35mm adaptor?
With the canon EF mount, there seems to be a whole range of nikon/contax/leica lens adaptor to choose from....im just hoping the Letus will release a EF mount for their flip unit soon.

Like the contax 50mm 1.7, great for photography on a Canon 20D, i wonder how will it be like to use on a 35mm adaptor.

Just curious if anyone tried it yet
 
Andreas said:
Well actually this not the case ! Many lenses in wide open are soft. Shooting
with f2.8, f4, you have much sharper image and your backround is stil blury enought for most of the cases. Most of SLR lenses give their best at f5.6 f.8 f11 so shooting at f1.8 is not what you want if you can avoid it.

Just some thoughts
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It's good in theory, except many times having to open up to 1.4 or 1.8 isn't because you want that extra bit of shallow DOF - it's because you need that extra bit of light. With the exception of shooting outdoors in bright sunlight, I almost always had to shoot WFO whether I wanted to or not - and I was flooding my sets with light. Just my 2 cents.
 
You can still set the aperture on a EOS camera, press the DOF preview button and unmount the lens while holding it. Then the lower F-stop will stick.
 
Dan,
Am I seeing that right? Do you have some kind of "upside-down" rig? Where'd you get that? It's brilliant (if that's what it is)!
 
Anders Holck said:
You can still set the aperture on a EOS camera, press the DOF preview button and unmount the lens while holding it. Then the lower F-stop will stick.
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can you post grabs please for this theory !!! because this could be a logical solution to the digital optics.... right....
 
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