Converting film camera lenses to digital cameras

[kojakdog]

Alright folks. I 've decided to come out of the film camera Jurassic period. I'm trying to decide what camera to choose. I have a Canon A2E film camera. Can I use my lenses on the Canon digital cameras?

[rpcrowe]

YUP! The A2E also known as the EOS 5 was part of the EOS line of cameras, the 5/A2/A2e utilized Canon's EF bayonet lens mount, first introduced in 1987.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_EOS_5

EF lenses will fit all Canon DSLR cameras... However, there is quite a bit of quality difference between various EF lenses. Some might be worth basing a camera system around and some were not particularly good lenses.

As an example; IMO, the 75-300mm f/4-5.6 IS, introduced in 1995, was not a particularly good lens; while the 300mm f/4L IS lens, introduced in 1997 is still in production and can hold its own against some of the most modern lenses. I would Google reviews for the lenses that you have and see what the consensus is of their quality.

The problem with using other than top-quality lenses is that your image quality is more dependent on your lenses than on your camera body...

[Tygart]

I don't know anything about the Canon A2E..
but I have some Pentax M42 lenses, that I have an adapter for my Canon 40D. I understand depending on the lenses, you can take some very nice images with them.

[rpcrowe]

I don't know anything about the Canon A2E..
but I have some Pentax M42 lenses, that I have an adapter for my Canon 40D. I understand depending on the lenses, you can take some very nice images with them.

Since the A2E was (or is) an EOS camera, using EF lenses, you do not need any adapter to use the lenses from your A2E kit to ANY Canon DSLR camera, this runs the gamut of cameras from the professional 1D (series), the 5D (series), all of the x0D cameras, the 7D and the Rebel (series).

Although I think that Canon did a nasty job on photographers owning manual focus Canon lenses when they made the EOS cameras virtually incompatible with the MF lenses; they have been pretty darn consistent in that all EF lenses will fit ALL DSLR cameras from the D30 through the present models. EFS lenses will only fit 1.6x cameras from the 20D on and all Rebel (series) cameras.