I have a Canon EOS rebel x, and purchased a Lentar 300mm lens. What type of converter will I need to attach the two? The Lentar is fairly smaller than the Canon. I would appreciate any help. Thank you, Tracey

-- Tracey Harris (eirinn@webtv.net), January 24, 2000

Answers

The short and simple answer is you can't, of if you can it won't be worth it.

The long answer is that it depends which mount your "Lentar" lens has. If it's a Canon FD mount, a T-mount or a Pentax screw mount then there are adaptors you can find, but you won't have autofocus, you won't have automatic aperture control and the quality will be unlikely to be very good. "Lentar" is probably a no-name generic lens from SE Asia with questionable performance. If you really want an adaptor, try B&H Photo in NYC, but you'd probably be MUCH better off buying an EOS lens like the 75-300 zoom (under $200 new, maybe $150 used).

-- Bob Atkins (bobatkins@hotmail.com), January 25, 2000.

To add to Bob Atkin's comment: I would also suggest the Tamron (for Canon AF) 28 - 300. I have the 28 - 200AF lens and use it on my Canon Elan IIE, getting superb results at all focal lengths, plus close-focussing ability to 20 inches. All other 28 - 200s have a closest-focusing barrier of 5 to 8 feet, so watch out for that.

With rare exception, lens mounts are proprietary (so you can't use a Nikon lens on a Canon body etc.). Makers of lenses for other companies' camera bodies (e.g. Tamron, Sigma and Tokina) offer different versions of each lens that are not only compatible with lens mounts, but also electronically dedicated. The latter means that the computers in the camera body and lens can "talk" to each other. In Canon cameras, some 50 different types of data are transmitted back and forth between the camera body and lens, information related to exposure, auto-focussing (and perhaps other things).

Good luck!

Roy

-- roy kekewich (roykekewich@yahoo.com), January 26, 2000.