Rookie upgrading from film to a digital SLR...

To say I am very new to photography is an understatement. I believe that most here are far more advanced than I, however, I need some experienced advice. I am saving for a canon digital rebel, however, during this learning curve I only have a Canon Rebel film camera (K2) and I recently wanted a zoom or telephoto lens in order to begin learning more than just shooting pictures of my kids. I know from reading other sites that my purchase on ebay was not the best but I did purchase a Quantaray auto zoom 80~200mm lens for just a few bucks to learn with. It wont fit my camera. My question is will an adapter work? I do know that a canon lens is better, but I would like to save that for a digital one day as I also understand that the film versions of the Rebel and Digital's do not have interchangeable lenses.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Could you give us some more details about the lens, please? The model, mount - anything about it, really - would be useful.

Having said that, it is unlikely - if you need an adaptor to physically attach lens to body - that you will still get auto focus.

Welcome to the forums.

Adaptors are available for a variety of mounts.
Post your lens details and I am sure someone will know how to guide you.

Ok... My suspicion is that the lens is made for FD cameras, which is not compatible with EOS mount because FD has a shorter flange to film register, hence the lens can't be focused correctly. For sure, you will lose focus at infinity. However, this is valid if and only if effectively you bought a lens for FD mount and you camera is EOS mount. You will have to give us more detail about this, as Keith Reeder said, specially about the lens.

Now, I would like to make a note. You don't need a new lens to learn photography and move on from family shots. You just need to learn. The "learning lens" for ages was the 50mm for example. Great photographs have been taken with that focal length, and almost with any existant focal length.

Best regards,
Sebastián.

Thanks for all of the advice. I must say that I am impressed at how nice you've been to offer to share your experience. All I suppose I can really do is tell you what is on the outside of the lens. It reads "Quantaray Auto Zoom 1:3.8~4.5 f=80~200mm Multi-Coated No. L5802350 52 and then a 0 with a line through it":confused:

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Originally Posted by aford9852

Thanks for all of the advice. I must say that I am impressed at how nice you've been to offer to share your experience. All I suppose I can really do is tell you what is on the outside of the lens. It reads "Quantaray Auto Zoom 1:3.8~4.5 f=80~200mm Multi-Coated No. L5802350 52 and then a 0 with a line through it":confused:

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Ok, let's see. The 0 with the diagonal line through is the diameter indicator. The

HTML Code:

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52⌀

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means that the filter size for that lens is 52mm.

Unfortunately, that lens is for FD mount, and not EOS mount, which the mount of your camera. As far as I know, that lens was not made in EOS mount.

Canon has had three mounts in its history: the firs version of the FD, then the most common version of the FD mount which changed the silver rotating ring for a latch release system, and the EOS mount, which is the current one (I think the last FD camera was the T90).

If I remember correctly and that lens was not made in EOS mount, it will not fit on the camera. There are some adaptors however, but they include a correcting lens, which is necessary because the film to flange register is different on EOS cameras (longer) and FD lenses cannot be focused at infinity (focusing a lens at infinity makes the lens get close to the film/sensor plane, and the distance from mount to film on the EOS mount is too long to let an FD lens get close enough to the film/sensor plane to focus correctly at infinity). These adaptors that add a small glass element add for optical abberations, so they are generally not recommended.

Since most probably you will not able to use that lens on your EOS camera, my humble advice is to sell it, and buy a compatible EOS lens for your camera.

Cheers&Best,
Sebas.

Sebas gives good advice, I feel - as a very new photographer, you really need to make life as easy for yourself as possible, and getting tied up in the complications lens adaptors and manual focus is not likely to help you to learn the basics.