Rebel XT Repair/Mod

<p>Hello,<br>

I'm new to Canon and photography but I've loved getting into it...Which can be a problem when you're a student. I'm a big fan of minolta and I have a bit of minolta gear as well as some lenses I idolize...another problem! I can't use them on my canon body (i've made an adapter out of a canon body cap and a minolta rear cap (one fit inside the other) so the lens is flush against the canon body but because the minolta flange (43.5) is shorter than the canon flange (44) I can't get infinity focus (although stopping down does help quite a bit) I've looked extensively for adapters and I don't want to put more glass in the equastion because I don't want picture degredation (does anyone have experience with this?). So I was thinking I could just mill down the bayonet body mount on the canon....<br>

SO here is my question:<br>

Can a buy a second canon bayonet body mount and mill it down by .5mm to achieve infinity focus? Where could I buy one and what are the risks/dangers of doing this. I've looked all over and I can't find where to buy an old bayonet mount on the internet and in addition I'm afraid if I exchange the two mounts from time to time then the original will not go on evenly or something else might happen which will affect picture quality with my canon lens. Does anyone have any experience, information or suggestions? It'd be greatly appreciated. I want my rokkor glass on my rebel!</p>

<p>Thanks for your help!<br>

A newbie in the community</p>

<p>When I first got a Canon body (it was a XTi) without lenses. I wanted to see how the camera works, so I remove the mount on my Rokkor lens, hold the lens at the body lens mount with my left hand and move it back and forth to focus and shoot with my right hand. It worked fine</p>

<p>I suggest you shoot with your Minolta lenses on Minolta bodies.</p>

<p>What you're proposing is a fairly drastic modification and it would be really hard to get it to turn out in such a way as to be useful.</p>

<p>I think the only way to get just the mount would be to find a "for parts" auction or to cannibalize an older EOS film body. Some of the latter are actually very cheap, but it would be a shame to wreck one for this, especially since I'm not at all confident that taking off just the .5mm would actually do the job given the other variables in your jury-rigged mount adapter.</p>

<p>Buy a couple used Canon lenses, if money is an issue, find a shop that sells used gear, you should be able to find a few good used Canon lenses. I think the Rebel XT Kit lens 17-55mm f/3.5 is about $45 used. A used 75-300mm is $75- $100 or less used.<br>

It just isn't worth screwing with making a Rube Goldberg/Red Green duct tape adapter (yes duct tape, the handy man's secret weapon) that will give you inferior performance.<br>

It is not like there aren't other cool el cheapo projects you can try like that cool Opossum Lodge Fish Eye Adapter, a dollar store or Pep Boys stick on Fish eye truck mirror duct taped to the lens with cardboard, then reverse the images in Photoshop. lol.</p>

<p>What you are proposing is not really attractive, It is imo best to shoot canon lens on a canon body and minolta lens on a minolta body.<br>

Used canon bodies are pretty inexpensive, And the newer 18-55 kit lens with IS is quite good.<br>

You can search on ebay for the lens mount part for canon xt, But as I already did, I haven't found any. And even if you managed to find one, I would imagine that you still need to build up the inner side of the mount to make it lock tightly with the lens. That , Plus other unforeseen necessary modifications.<br>

So this Idea of yours is a two thumbs down for me.</p>

<p>Altering a Canon body so that your Minolta lenses will fit sounds like a a disastor particularly if it doesn't work and the mirror gets damaged. Getting an old Canon lens for the bayonet and modifying your minolta lens sounds a better bet. At least you will still have a working camera.</p>

<p>If you don't want to add glass to the equation then you are all out of options.<br>

A few other things to consider:<br>

To adapt a minolta sr mount lens directly to the canon body would mean milling down the aperture linkage pin, making them manual exposure only on your film bodies, assuming your film body had a stop down lock (some don't partlcularly later x series cameras)<br>

The canon body would have a 1.6 conversion factor<br>

The adaptor has conversion factor of 1.2 or therabouts.<br>

Forget wide angle.<br>

You are also really stretching the sweet spot of the lens.<br>

The lenses date from film era, where film absorbed light. Digital sensors reflect some and you are asking for bother with ghositing etc.<br>

I used to use SR-Ts and an X-500 (aka the x570, the best x series camera in use) but waved goodbye when I went EOS, and frankly, haven't looked back.<br>

There was an online guide to modding a canon for SR lens use, but I post the link here without any liability.<br>

I decided not to. Your call. I s'pose a second hand XT is a bit more viable than a 7D.<br>

http://digitalrokkor.altervista.org/news.html</p>

<p>Heres an adapter on eBay that should do what you want if you want to spend $35: <br>

http://cgi.ebay.com/Minolta-MD-MC-Lens-canon-adapter-Rebel-50D-40D-/250644189147?pt=Digital_Camera_Accessories&hash=item3a5b8ecfdb#ht_3313wt_755</p>