Old lens new camera?

I’m wondering how well older lenses work with the new technology cameras. Can they be adapted easily but just without all the features? Will this let me use a new reliable camera with existing lenses?

Eric Brodersen said:

I’m wondering how well older lenses work with the new technology cameras. Can they be adapted easily but just without all the features? Will this let me use a new reliable camera with existing lenses?

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If the lens mount is compatible, the lenses will work. Nikon has kept its lens mount and many old lenses can be used [manual focus on the newer cameras]. The AF lenses can be used on the oldest cameras as manual focus if rabbit ears are added for compatibility.

Canon changed to a larger diameter mount so that they could build larger aperture lenses in the early 2000s. This limits the swapping of older and newer lenses. Some people, like me, chose Nikon over Canon for that reason. Others are willing to pass up using older and usually less expensive Canon lenses in order to have larger apertures.

Thanks for the information. Much appreciated.

Please remember the immortal Pentax K bayonet mount. To the best of my knowledge, and the use of my Pentax K mount lens collection, all K mount lenses can be used on all current K mount cameras with, of course, some limitations. With the proper adapter, the excellent 42mm Pentax lenses can be used on K mount Pentax cameras.
As far as Canon's abandoning its earlier mounts in order to accomodate faster lenses, all of my K mount cameras are happy with my Pentax 50mm f1.2 K bayonet lens.

It is complicated depending on the mount. Pentax K and Nikon F mount lens will mount most of the old lens which will work on Nikon F and Pentax K digital bodies. Nikon F mount lens will work on the new Z mount with an adaptor with some fucntions, not sure if AF Nikon will auto fcous. Same with Canon R mount. As the Pentax mount evolved from M42, to K, KA, KAAF some of the consumer level digital bodies will not meter with M42 or K lens, need KA or later. Sony bought the Minolta A mount camera factory and continued to use the Minolta A AF mount system before switching to E mount. All Sony A mount cameras including the last A77II and A99II will work with any A mount lens. The new mirrorless mount E, will only work with A lens with an adaptor. The Sony branded adaptor has a screw drive to work with all Minolta A lens going back the 80s. Most mirrorless mounts will work with a wide verity of older MF lens with various level of function. There are adaptors for the Olympus, Panasonic, and Fuji systems as well, again wide range adaptors for many lens.

Here is a test shot, Sony E mount camera, Miranda 70 to 200 with adaptor. Back lite, no adjustments, Jpeg from the camera.

Samsung NX1000 camera. "Jupiter-8" lens with Contax mount f2, 1/125s. The adapter is 3D printed and consists of two parts. The first part is attached to the camera, the second is attached to the lens. Focusing is carried out by rotating the second part along with the lens. creative experiment

MEOW!!!

Not only are there a ton of adapters for putting older lenses on newer cameras, it's often possible to make your own adapter -- should you need to. This might mean using two different adapters to get the lens to fit -- such as combining a Minolta-to-Leica adapter and a Leica-to-Copal adapter to get a Minolta lens on a large format camera -- or modifying an adapter in some way to meet your peculiar situation, or making one like Kito did (above).

One of the biggest obstacles is finding out what adapters were made -- especially for older lenses -- and then finding the actual adapter for your camera. Want a Y-S adapter to fit a Rollei SLR? They were made, but good luck finding one!

And, as mentioned, even when adapted, certain features of the lens (and camera) may or may not work. That has to be determined on a case-by-case basis.

Here are some examples of adapting various macro lenses to various cameras:

http://www.subclub.org/fujinon/macrolenses.htm

Necessity is the Mother of Invention.

As stated by

xkaes said:

Necessity is the Mother of Invention.

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... and in my opinion there's also a 'fun' factor to it. If you have fun doing it and enjoy the challenge you can adapt almost everything and get something out of it.

There is a variety of interesting reasons and ways to adapt older lenses to modern cameras. But how happy you're gonna be with the results may vary depending on what you want to achieve.

- if you want the maximum image quality and correction (or AF) modern lenses are probably your best bet. However some vintage lenses hold up surprisingly well even 50 or more years after they were built. In my experience specialized lenses often hold up better than general purpose ones. One of my current favorites is a (more than 50 years old) Carl Zeiss S-Sonnar 62 mm f/2.5 lens, which does probably challenge quite a number of modern macro lenses in many aspects - at least within the magnification range it was designed for:

So close, yet out o'range! by simple.joy, on Flickr

- if you want to go for a specific look some older manual focus lenses might provide, there are some great ones:

Don't be another brick in the wall. Stand out! by simple.joy, on Flickr

Hard to be soft in a good way... by simple.joy, on Flickr
(shot with a 90 year old lens)

- and if your main goal is to have fun experimenting, there are some really wonderful, fascinating (and sometimes incredibly cheap) options there as well:

Usually that's how well I fit in... by simple.joy, on Flickr
(shot with a very cheap enlarging lens)

Rust suspect busted! by simple.joy, on Flickr
(shot with a very cheap enlarging lens)