Quote:
Originally Posted by sejanus
Also a good one is the old Canon FD mount glass, or the old Nikon AIS glass. Personally I'd probably prefer that to the old russian stuff.
That stuff is dirt cheap on ebay, and you just get a cheap $20 mount adapter. You won't have AF or metering, but you won't need that pointed to the sky.
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The Canon FD lenses on an EOS won't give focus at infinity with a straight-through adapter - which really is what we want after all with astro stuff!
The distance between the end of the FD lens and the film-plane (or sensor-plane? is not enough, so even a glass-less adapter of zero thickness will not allow focussing to infinity - what you end up with is a macro lens.
You can get an adapter with glass that allows the use of FD lenses on an EOS body and infinity focus, but the image quality is severly degraded. Its OK for family shots or holiday snaps at f5.6 - f11, but that's about it. I got one from
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...for_Canon.html
I have a FD 35 F2.8, FD 50 f1.4 and a fantastic FD 100 F2, but they are of no use whatsoever for astrophotography when mounted on my 40D.
I have thought about pulling one of then apart to see if I can shorten the mount and use it, but I don't know if I can be bothered.
You can get a adapter for almost any other lens to EOS - I had an Olympus to EOS, a Contax to EOS and Pentax M42 to EOS and they all were really good and I used them with a Contax (Carl Zeiss) 50 mm f1.4, and a Olympus 400 mm f6.3. Until someone stole my camera bag....
I now use a Canon 28 F1.8 and Canon 50 mm f1.4 and they are very good lenses. I also now have a Canon 400 f5.6.
So if you want a 'cheap' but good lens and don't care about autofocus, then I would say have a look for a Contax, Leica, Nikon or Pentax SMC M42 lens. Probably the cheapest out of these would be the Pentax SMC M42, but many of these lenses were, and still are, as good if not better than any new lens. They are also often very cheap, especially the ones that have gone yellow - the Lanthanum in the glass makes the glass yellow with age, but if you just stick it in the sun for a few days, the UV will bleach the glass.
If you want autofocus and so on, just stick with a good canon lens - for wide field, I think the 28 f1.8 is a very good lens and it also acts as a 'standard' lens on a 300/350/400/20/30/40D. Otherwise the 50 mm f1.8 is optically very good and very cheap - but mechanically not the best. The 50 f1.4 is a very good lens, but a lot more money.