Old vs. New

[richard_baumer2]

<p>I am a marginally successful nature photographer (sold a few images) who shot medium and large format for many years. I finally decided to make the leap to digital and bought a canon 5D Mark II. I never used zoom lenses on my film gear, but I figured that the sensor would be the weak link on the digital camera and bought two zoom lenses. I am now ready to try and upgrade my near zoom (EF 24-85). I have a question. Should I by a 24 - 104 L IS zoom lens or should I by an adopter and find a few old fixed focus Nikon lenses. The automations on the canon are convenient but I don't feel that I need them. I do feel that I ought to try and get my images sharper. <br>

Thank you.</p>

[alan_bryant1]

<p>I'm quite fond of my 24-105/4 L. It really only has two weaknesses, both of them well known: Vignetting at 24mm, which is pretty severe, and distortion at 24mm, which is pretty severe. I find it sharp wide open throughout the zoom range.</p>

<p>But that's just me, everyone has an opinion about that lens.</p>

<p>Adapting old lenses can be fun, and the adapters are cheap, so if that route appeals to you give it a try.</p>

[William Michael]

<p>Personally I can’t see a lot of sense in the idea of <em>“</em><em>find[ing] a few old fixed focus Nikon lenses” </em>– but if you have Nikon Lenses already, then yes.<br />What about your MF lenses and adapt them?</p>

<p>Rather than buying old Nikon lenses, I’d buy the 24 105/4 I like that lens – I use it a lot, but opinions vary.<br />Or you could buy a few Canon Primes – they’d not have to fast lenses, would they?<br />Most of Canon’s slower primes, are very sharp and not that expensive and buying Canon, you’d have the convenience of full automation.</p>

<p>I am not keen on the line of thinking, that you’ll ONLY use this camera in the way you used your MF & Large Format gear . . . you can shoot Birthday Parties and other stuff, too, for example: and you might find that having automation available all the time opens up new vistas to your Photography.</p>

<p>WW</p>

[colin carron]

<p>I agree with the two answers given above. The 24-105 f/4 is quite a decent lens though not stunningly fast and does what Alan says. If you need more then Canon primes are mostly very nice lenses as Wouter says.</p>

[robin_sibson1]

<p>The sensors in recent and current DSLRs scarcely constitute the weak link in the photographic process, especially at high ISO, where they go well beyond what film was ever capable of.</p>

<p>As a long-time user of the 24~105, I agree with the comments of other posters. It is a very good although not perfect lens, whose defects can readily be corrected in post-processing with almost no downside. It is also a very versatile lens, not too heavy/bulky/expensive yet offering reasonable speed and a convenient zoom range.</p>

<p>I see no point at all in buying old Nikon prime lenses, which on average are no better than the corresponding Canon EF lenses, and in some cases are very poor (see recent Photozone tests on Nikon medium WA lenses). If you want the ultimate performance, look first at Canon's own prime lenses, and then at some of the off-brand EF-mount lenses such as those under the Zeiss label. With some of these you will not get AF, but at least the diaphragm will operate properly and the lens will communicate with the camera.</p>

[Marcus Ian]

<p>There are certainly some very good old nikkors out there, but I don't expect that you'll see much in the way of a tangible improvement over what is capable with modern zooms over them. What I might suggest instead is instead some of the newer primes. collectively, the cost will be higher than a 24-105, but individual FLs will be considerably more inexpensive.</p>

<p>No lens is perfect (obviously), but many of the even relatively inexpensive (Samyang for example) primes produce imagery considerably improved over what many of the older nikkor lenses are capable of. In this day and age, the 'brand' of a lens is <em>far</em> less important than an individual lens's capabilities and characteristics. I would suggest that you consider expanding your system on a lens by lens consideration as opposed to sticking with one type or one brand uniformly.</p>

<p>As far as the 24-105/4 specifically, while it certainly has it's 'hiccups', it is a pretty darn good GP lens overall, and makes an excellent 'carry zoom', however, in specific shooting circumstances you may find it's IQ, and overall capabilities a bit underwhelming. Since AF, and IS are not critical components to your shooting, I'd suggest that you weight these features appropriately when making your decision (especially in regards to relative cost).</p>

[mark_pierlot]

<p>I'm going to take a contrarian view here and say go ahead and pick up some older Nikkors if you like to manually focus. Whether pre-Ai, Ai, or Ai-S, they all adapt readily to EOS bodies, and are fun to use.</p>

<p>I have built a collection of choice Nikkor primes to use on my 5DII: 28/2, 50/1.2, 55/3.5 (macro w/ compensating aperture), 105/2.5, etc. And I must say I've been very impressed with their image quality. I do have EF primes as well, but there's something special for me about using the older manual focus, manual aperture lenses on my DSLR.</p>

<p>Others will disagree, but I don't think the decision has to come down to either/or.</p>

[sarah_fox]

<p>I've adapted many lenses to my EOS cameras, and I would recommend it if you have specific things you want to do with those specific lenses. However, for everyday use, it's far, far better to have a native lens that has electronic aperture control and autofocus capabilities. Image stabilization is a REALLY nice feature too. If you shoot from a tripod and manually focus using 10x liveview, and if you don't mind the inconvenience of twiddling an aperture ring back and forth between the focus and the shoot, then there's certainly no harm in an old, manual lens adapted to the EOS body. If your subject moves (or if you move), any miniscule sharpness advantage from a non-native prime over a native zoom will instantly evaporate, such that you would have been much better off with the native lens.</p>

<p>FAIW, I adapted Nikon's legendary 105/2.5 to my system. It's a beautiful lens! I liked it so much that I also bought Canon's EF 105/2.0. I found the Canon to be just as good a lens, if not just a tad better. AND I had electronic aperture control and auto focus. Of course this doesn't prevent me from focusing manually if desired. (AF really works quite well, though, especially if you assign that function to a button on the back and execute it manually!)</p>

<p>The 24-105: It's a good lens -- the one that stays on my camera the most. You might tweak out a tiny bit more resolution with a prime, even on a digital camera, but only at larger apertures. If you want to shoot at smaller apertures anyway, it shouldn't make much difference whether prime or zoom. Zooms also allow you to divorce perspective from framing, which gives you compositional control that primes usually don't. If your thing is larger aperture work using meticulous tripod-top technique, and if critical sharpness is more important than composition, primes might suit your needs better. If your thing is shooting wide open to minimize depth of field, there is simply no substitute for a prime. In most cases, under most typical shooting conditions, zoom vs. prime really doesn't matter much at all.</p>

<p>Also be warned that some zooms can give you not-so-great bokeh at certain focal lengths. For instance, the 24-105's bokeh beyond maybe 70 mm gets slightly harsh. On the bright side, this makes it a beautiful lens at 105mm for capturing OOF specular highlights in the background, and it makes it a beautiful foreground-bokeh lens at that fl (for OOF objects closer than the subject, commonly when shooting multiple people and having only the more distant person in focus).</p>

[sarah_fox]

<blockquote>

<p>Others will disagree, but I don't think the decision has to come down to either/or.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Amen, brother! Even the manual Nikkors are fairly affordable. You can certainly play on both sides of the fence. The same thing is true with the zoom/prime fence. Many photographers use "all of the above."</p>

[JDMvW]

<p>I have and love my EF 24-105mm L lens. It is the best all-round lens for a 35mm-sensor camera, IMHO.<br>

However, all and any zoom lenses encounter what we call "contradictions" -- the more so, the longer the range of the zoom. If you can accept this, and live with it, they are of enormous utility.<br>

<br />Once you adjust the the reality of AF and all the rest, the "deliberateness" of MF, stop-down shooting is something to seek out when you are having fun. I personally have something like 160 MF lenses, and I have at one time or another used all the more interesting of them on my digital bodies.<br>

There are reasons to go digital other than AF and all, but these are not negligible advantages of digital over film (with the obvious exceptions of the last generations of AF film cameras).<br>

When I go out to visit my beloved Civil War battlefields, I rarely end up shooting film. Although I confess I am thinking about going back to wet-plate, large format. :)<br>

I am extremely puzzled by your comment</p>

<blockquote>

<p>I figured that the sensor would be the weak link on the digital camera</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Except insofar as the lens makers have claimed to have improved their lenses to shoot better on digital than their earlier, film-camera lenses were capable of doing.</p>

[rob_h5]

<blockquote>

<p> ...nature photographer...</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I have shot with both the Canon 5DMKII and Canon 24-105mm f4 L and both camera and lens are excellent. The 24-105L is very very sharp, excellent for portraits/fashion even if its a bit slow (f4 is nothing to write home about in the 35mm SLR world). </p>

<p>But I dont think this is the real issue, if nature photography is your thing ( birds / wildlife for example) wouldnt you want telephoto lenses with a longer reach? What tele-lenses did you use for nature photography for medium and large format? Something like a Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM Telephoto zoom lens would be more suitable for nature IMO.</p>

<p>Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM Telephoto<br>

<a href="http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/732106-USA/Canon_4426B002_EF_70_300mm_f_4_5_6L_IS.html">http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/732106-USA/Canon_4426B002_EF_70_300mm_f_4_5_6L_IS.html</a></p>

[Andrew Garrard]

<p>It does seem a little odd to buy a Canon DSLR and then want to look for old Nikon lenses for it - unless you <i>do</i> already have them. The problem here is that old Nikon lenses still work on (some) Nikon DSLRs - without adapting - meaning that they're not as cheap as one might hope, except for the ones that aren't very good: Nikon users are still buying them. The Eos mount does have the advantage of compatibility because of its wide throat and short flange distance - at least you <i>can</i> adapt a Nikon lens to a Canon camera, whereas the reverse is impossible without severe compromises. It's unfortunate that adapting older Canon mount lenses doesn't work so well - these lenses are much cheaper in part because they're a dead end for DSLR users.<br />

<br />

I'd just get cheaper Canon EF lenses and be happy - with them switched to manual focus if you must. Canon do some very nice (manual focus) tilt-shift lenses if you're missing your large format camera!<br />

<br />

[Edit: Oops, thought I'd hit refresh, but I seem to have missed a lot of posts. I was also going to make the point that the digital sensor may not be the "weak point" until I registered that the OP was talking about larger formats, but - while the claim of digital's technical superiority is pretty accepted these days for 135 film - I'd say 6x7 and 5x4 film formats can keep a 5D2 pretty honest with the right - well-lit - subject matter. I'm not trying to start a flame war, just suggesting that we shouldn't be too dismissive. Not that I've got around to buying myself that Sinar yet.]</p>

[dcstep]

<p>You're not optimizing your Canon zooms unless you're shooting in Raw and applying Digital Lens Optimization ("DLO") when you convert to JPEG. Digital Photo Professional that shipped with your camera includes a DLO module that corrects for geometric errors, vignetting, CA, softness at every aperture and every focal length.</p>

<p>You say you're a "nature" photographer and you're talking about mainly wide to medium lenses, so I'm guessing that your and landscape specialist. For that application, MF will be fine and using Live View and the 10x mag factor, make for very accurate MF. However, shooting birds and mammals is another thing and AF will be required. The VF in most modern cameras do not suit quick, accurate MF.</p>

<p>Try the DLO first. I think you'll be pleased and surprised at how good it is. If that doesn't hit the mark, then I'd look to Ziess for excellent MF landscape lenses. Then again, for that kind of money, you can go with the incredible Canon TS-E lenses. Most old Nikon lenses will not beat those. (Maybe you already own some Nikons, in which case, adaptors may make sense).</p>

[francisco_salaquanda]

<p>I'm a Nikon shooter (at the moment), but Canon have just as extensive a range of great lenses to suit your 5d2. Its not so simple now to use non-OEM lenses, even with an adapter to gain the best out of them. The camera's computer talks to the lens constantly and neither Canon nor Nikon actually publish their lens and camera software, so its always a matter of trial and error. Even Tamron and Sigma have to do some reverse engineering, which Canon and Nikon tolerate in the interests of selling more bodies.</p>

<p> </p>

[steve_mareno1]

<p>Instead of old Nikon lenses (I have 'em and love 'em), how about some old Leica R lenses? To my eyes, that's the end of the road concerning image quality and color saturation. I've been shooting them on Leica and Nikon SLR film cameras for many years, and the negs are immediately identifiable w/ just a glance. They're the best lenses I've ever used.</p>

[rob_h5]

<blockquote>

<p>...how about some old Leica R lenses?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Exactly! Steve has it right. If the OP has to to go with manual lenses for the Canon 5D MKII , at least go with Leica, Zeiss ZE or Olympus OM Zuiko (or 3rd party lenses with OM mount). Nikon lenses and Canon EOS cameras were <em>never meant to be</em>, adapting Nikon lenses on Canon EOS cameras is somewhat major surgery, its not just a simlple adapter and your done, the (Nikon) lenses need to be disassembled and reassembled ... in other words ... a big headache.</p>

<p>What the OP needs to do is tell us exactly what he plans to shoot... OK "nature" .... but what exactly? Birds, mammals, buffalo, underwater fish, landscape....ect. Until then there not much more we can do to help the OP in this thread. :/</p>

[Wouter Willemse]

<blockquote>

<p>adapting Nikon lenses on Canon EOS cameras is somewhat major surgery, its not just a simlple adapter and your done, the (Nikon) lenses need to be disassembled and reassembled ... in other words ... a big headache.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Huh? Fitting <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Fotodiox-Pro-Adapter-Nikon-Lens/dp/B002JWYAXA/ref=pd_cp_p_0">an adapter</a>. Done. Adapting anything to fit on the Nikon F-mount is a headache. The EF-mount however makes a great host.<br>

__<br>

I'm a Nikon shooter, using mostly older Nikkor primes. I like their rendering. Quite some of them may possibly be not be the ultimate in sharpness, corner definition, handling flare and so on, and as such be a bit more 'temperamental' tools that take a bit more consideration in use. But they can bring that bit extra... That said, for landscapes, I mostly fall back to the Nikon equivalent of the 24-105 - it's versatile, predictable and the right range for 90% of the landscapes I run into.<br>

Would I be a Canon FF user, I'd get this lens first; and then later decide to add some of the primes for their specific qualities.</p>

[rob_h5]

<p>Not to start a Nikon vs Canon war <em>but </em>the OP should seriously decide which lenses he wants to use first (Canon or Nikon or whatever) then get the DSLR body accordingly. If he already has an arsenal of Nikon lenses... great! But he is in the wrong forum and should go to the Nikon forum and ask the Nikon guys there for advice on a suitable Nikon DSLR camera. Just my opinion.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Huh? Fitting an adapter. Done.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Eh, according to this <a href="http://www.leitax.com/Nikon-lens-for-Canon-cameras.html">website</a> ...Not Done. At least not done without disassembly and reassembly of the Nikon lens. OTH I am a Canon shooter and I have never shot with Nikon lenses or Nikon cameras so adapting Nikon lenses is not something I ever had to worry about. And until you showed me that Nikon-EOS adapter....I did not even know that a Fotodiox Nikon-EOS adapter existed! And Fotodiox adapters are all I use so it must be well made.<br>

<br /> Nikon-EOS adapter major surgery instructions step by step:<br /> <a href="http://www.leitax.com/conversion/Nikon-Canon/index.html">http://www.leitax.com/conversion/Nikon-Canon/index.html</a></p>

[mark_pierlot]

<p>That hardly looks like "major surgery." You just mount the adapter over the existing lens mount. It would be major if you had to remove the existing mount first.</p>

<p>All of that is unnecessary, though, since you can buy other adapters that don't require this procedure (e.g., Novoflex, Fotodiox, and cheap Chinese ones).</p>

[sarah_fox]

<p>When scrolling down to the bottom of that page, I see these two things simultaneously:</p>

<blockquote>

<p><big>Now the Nikon, Voigtlander and Zeiss ZF/ZF2 lenses will be as <strong>solid</strong> as a Canon lens on a Canon camera.</big></p>

</blockquote>

<p>and...</p>

<blockquote>

<p><big><big><a href="http://www.leitax.com/conversion/Chip/Howtoglue_Canon/Dandelion-Canon-howtoglue.html">How to glue a chip on your mount.</a></big></big></p>

</blockquote>

<p>Yeah, glue.... SOLID! :-)</p>

<p>FAIW, the cheapie eBay adapters work just fine. The chipped ones are well worth avoiding, though. </p>

[Andrew Garrard]

<p>Actually, the chip doesn't need much support in my experience - glue is fine. But the rest of that page is about modifying a Nikon lens to become a Canon mount lens, whereas most people would just get an adaptor to put between the two (which doesn't involve harming the Nikkor in any way). Incidentally, I <i>have</i> done the reverse - taking an Eos mount off a (third-party) lens and attaching an F-mount. It was a little painful, but mostly because the lens was weird (tilt-shift). With other types of lenses you may be more concerned about shimming alignment, though (it did take me a while to persuade the manufacturer that, since it was already a tilt-shift lens, I really didn't care about getting the tilt and shift calibrated by the lens manufacturer). Mounting an Eos lens on a Nikon camera really isn't trivial. Mounting anything else on a Canon body is more or less as easy as you'll get without resorting to a mirrorless body.</p>

[rob_h5]

<blockquote>

<p>Yeah, glue.... SOLID! :-)</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Ha ha ! LOL :D</p>

<p>I had a good chuckle too when I saw those "instructions" on that website. I dont know Andrew, I agree with Sarah on this one ...<strong>if you have to break out the Crazy Glue just to use a Nikon lens on a Canon DSLR that is just asking for a big MESS</strong>. I did not know before that a Nikon-EOS adapter from Fotodiox existed until Wouter mentioned it. A Nikon-EOS adapter is the way to go if you really must use Nikon lenses on Canon Digital. I use Fotodiox adapters all the time but I mainly shoot with Canon EOS adapting other lenses...I just dont use any Nikon lenses.</p>

<p>High quality adapters<br /> <a href="http://fotodioxpro.com/">http://fotodioxpro.com/</a></p>

[Andrew Garrard]

<p>To be fair, I didn't chip a Nikon lens - I chipped a manual focus tilt-shift lens (actually the same one whose mount I removed in order to convert it to Nikon) so that the focus confirmation worked. That just involved glue and, while fitting it was a little precarious, it never fell off. There's just not that much leverage being applied, and superglue is good stuff.<br />

<br />

I used to hate that manual focus lenses needed a chip in order to activate the autofocus system (I still don't know why this is the case). Nikon lenses without a chip will activate the digital rangefinder (though I miss the A-DEP behaviour with manual focus lenses from my Canon), but low end bodies without a mechanical aperture feeler won't let you use the meter unless the lens has electronics (which is daft, because Canons let you use stop-down metering); even high-end Nikons need to be told the lens max aperture manually. The latest ironic turn is that Nikon have not allowed trap focus with manual focus lenses for a while, but have recently (D4/D800 and later) stopped trap focus from working with even AF lenses... except that it works with third-party chipped lenses that are manual focus but which claim they're trying to autofocus. I'm tempted to go back to chipping.</p>

[sarah_fox]

<p>I just don't trust those chip thingies. I've used enough superglue in my lifetime to know it can (and does) fail, and the prospect of a chip rattling around in the mirror box -- somewhere between the rear element of my lens, my shutter, and my sensor -- is more than mildly disturbing. On an equally disturbing note, one of those AF confirm chips destroyed JDM VW's 20D.</p>

[Andrew Garrard]

<p>Ouch. Okay, well, now I feel better about having converted that lens to F-mount. (Though the actual mount is shiny and reflects; I've yet to establish how to black it out without dropping crud on my sensor.) Of course, the AF confirmation was always a bit dodgy anyway when the lens was tilted, but at least it was better than nothing. These days, live view is my friend for tilt-shift.</p>