help with lenses

[kennwrx]

I have many old lenses,I want to know if they will work with a new digital body the ones I have are banette style from a pentax body

[S4toSTI]

What camera do you have?

[kennwrx]

I dont have a camera thats digital yet. I would like to use my old school lenses on a new digital body.

[Kaleo55]

I don't know about Pentax, but I grandfather all my old lenses on my Nikon. Thank God, cause I'm so old school I prefer do all my settings manually including focusing.

[TROLL]

I don't believe Pentax will work, but if you're looking to get into digital photography it wouldn't be worth basing around old lenses anyway, even if they were good.

[S4toSTI]

I think old pentax's will work on the sony dslr's

[Kaleo55]

Originally Posted by TROLL

I don't believe Pentax will work, but if you're looking to get into digital photography it wouldn't be worth basing around old lenses anyway, even if they were good.

Are you talking specifically about Pentax or as a general rule of thumb? Cause like I said I love my old 55 Nikkor Macro and it works just fine with my D1X, as well as other other "old" Nikkor and Tamron bayonet mount lenses. The Optics and quality of the glass is either good or they aren't. Unless you must have auto focus and aperture control.

[kennwrx]

I have a macro bayonet,telephoto bayonet,and a (ithink)35-55 bayonet mount all german made (ZEISS) I think thats how its spelled. And i used them on a pentax body because these were expensive I would like to use them on a new digital body and need to know what body they would fit if any.

[OWENthatsmyname]

http://photo.net/equipment/pentax/ ? idk if that helps

[TROLL]

I meant I just didnt think Pentax would work...
In the past the quality of the image was entirely dependant on the lenses, so it might make sense to buy a body around good glass. Now, the quality of the body is also a large factor since the digital sensor is inside and they vary greatly, so you need to consider the whole system instead of just the lenses. If Pentax makes great digital cameras then cool (I wouldnt know), but if they dont, then it would be a waste to have an inferior Pentax body with great glass... the results would still not be that good.
So basically, review your options and consider the system as a whole to decide whats best for you. I'd recommend Canon or Nikon as they are leading the way in the DSLR scene and have many options available. You can sell your current equipment for good money most likely if it really is desired gear.

[97TurboDSM]

ZEISS makes canon mounts. im sure you could get some baffles for whatever body you might need so they mount up.

[sisforsurfing]

You can adapt a huge amount of different lenses to fit EF (current Canon) mount, but for some reason I remember Pentax bayonet mount being one that doesn't work, or at least not working on full-frame cameras (generally the more expensive ones.) If you're really interested in seeing if it would work, Google Pentax bayonet to EF mount and see what you come up with.

In general I don't think it would be worth it if you're just starting to get into photography since you'll have to manual focus and light metering will have to be done with the lens stopped down (basically everything is much slower/more manual). If the lenses can be adapted to EF mount (even if not), there's a decent used market. That said, if you're willing to deal with adapters and manual exposure/focusing, the glass might work really well on more modern cameras... there are lots of people out there using old MF lenses on modern cameras with great results.

[97TurboDSM]

i just read a thread on POTN where a guy retrofitted an EF-S 10-22 lens with an EF 70-300 baffle to mount on his 1D. was pretty cool so if you can do something like that with the ZEISS it would probably work.

[sisforsurfing]

I stumbled upon this last night; http://www.alibaba.com/catalog/11754..._Eos_Body.html

You can use that adapter to mount Pentax glass on a Canon body, but can't focus the lens to infinity. This may or may not matter to you, but most likely you'll want to be focusing to infinity unless you're using wide angles stopped down to at least f8 or shooting only portraits where you don't need to focus too far out.