EF Lens adapter / EF Lenses / EOS Lens

[Ken Tanaka]

Hello Henry,
There are lots of threads here dealing with the EF adapter, located via the Search button (above).

[Henry Gray]

Yes Ken, I have looked at many hundreds of threads but I
still cannot find the answers to my questions.

[Jeff Donald]

The lens will not auto focus, it will need to be manually zoomed by the camera operators hand and the aperture may (or may not) be able to be adjusted manually via the XL1 aperture dial. Sigma does not purchase chips for their lenses from Canon (unlike Tamron and Tokina) and compatibility and functionality issues may arise with the Sigma lens.

[Tom Duncan]

I ran some tests using the EF adapter on my XL1s using a variety of eos lenses. The "zoom" images are using the 16Xmanual lens, fully in and out, which is 52mm and 844mm respectively. All pics were taken from the same spot. The pictures are unretouched other than de-interlace in photoshop. I felt the image clarity was fine, given there was a lot of atmospheric influence that afternoon. The longer lengths were very difficult to fix focus. Very shallow relative DOF and just touching the focus ring would blur the image.

http://www.wavecam.com/images/lenstest/

Basically, because of the huge (7.8X ?) magnification factor, the interchangeable lenses are not a practical feature of the XL, except for extreme telephoto use. Beyond 200mm, the system was too unstable to get a good image panning or tilting.

[Jeff Price]

There is at least one other company making a long lens support for the XL1. I'm pretty sure it is Kirk photo.

[Ron Armstrong]

These are old posts and answers have probably already been resolved: But I have the solution to your EOS and FD lens mounting problems. I also have a sight that is very useful in capturing the subjects that are hard to find with the limited FOV inherent with the long lenses. Take a look at my website at www.ronsrail.com

[Carroll Wood]

Okay, I have just sold my two Sony PD 150's and have decided to move to Canon gear simply for the opportunity to be able to use my Canon EF lenses. I am a sports photographer as well and I already have a very nice collection of Canon "L" glass.

24-70L 2.8 - 50 1.4 - 85 1.8 - 70-200L 2.8 - 135L 2.0 - 300L 4.0 - 300L 2.8 - 400L 2.8.

I have read these threads and re-read these threads regarding the use on EF lenses and I keep coming to a different conclusion. I can't find anybody posting who uses this setup to shoot sports, some of the landscape and wildlife guys seem to love using these lenses while others seem to feel that they are so long they are useless do to camera shake.

I understand that I need an adaptor and the magnification factor is about 7x. I also lose auto focus? Will my fast apertures still work to enable a nice bokeh background blur and help in low light situations?

A ton of my video sales are youth team sports highlight video and college recruiter videos.

Anybody out there shooting sports can give your view of using these lenses.

Thanks,

Woody

[Jeff Donald]

They will probably be too long. The DOF will increase 7X also, because of the magnification. You could get by with the 24~70 (173~504), but why? The normal Canon XL lens will retain AF and has IS, probably resulting in more usable shots.

[Ron Armstrong]

Woody I primarily shoot wildlife; But have shot some soccer and baseball using the Canon XL lens as well as the 70-200 2.8 EOS lens.The problem with the EOS lens is the ability to focus quickly and hi magnification,so it depends on where you are in the stadium.I think the new 20X lens would be ideal for sports, as Jeff stated.
My prime lens for wildlife is a Canon 50-300 4.5 FD L lens,quite often with a 1.4 converter. resulting in about 3000mm - (35mm equivilent) It is also not unusual to use a 600mm lens for long distance shots.Most wildlife people I know are not adverse to using these long lenses on sturdy tripods and stable fluid heads. Some of them use the 150-600mm Canon FD L lens. A commercialy available converter is used to attach the lens to the XL series cameras. Approx. price $400. I built mine, but don't recommend others try it!
There is also another problem which is seldom mentioned. In the older EOS lenses, there is an unusual amount of motor noise that is picked up by the microphone. It may not be too apparent in sports with all the background noise. The newer lenses are considerably quieter.

[Carroll Wood]

Jeff & Bob ... thanks for the replys.

Maybe I should clarify my sports style. I don't shoot entire games where I pan with the action. I have a shot list and follow it. For example what I was thinking I could do with the extra reach is set up beyond the center field fence on a platform of some sort and get a great shot of the hitter catcher, and umpire. Once the batter starts to run to first he runs out of the frame, I don't follow him. I was wanting to sit on particular players looking for extreme closeup emotion shots. The look of a pitcher after a big strikeout, the dejection of giving up a big hit, the excitement of a coach after a big play, etc ... and I need to do it from a distance to keep me out of the way of the game.

Picking up sound from the lens isn't at all an issue as I don't use any sound from these shots, when I use ambiant sound(which is seldom), I get it from the close in cameras like my VX2000 and the majority of the video is backed with a high tempo music track anyway.

I really wasn't thinking about the two big lenses the 300 & 400 2.8's but more like the 70-200, the 135 and even the light weight 300 4.0.

So really the EF lenses is not an option that will be viable for me, it's really only an advantage for landscape, wildlife type of stuff?

My exitement baloon has been punctured!

But thanks,

Woody

[Ron Armstrong]

Woody The 70-200 would be a great lens for tjhis application. You would get the closeups as well as being able to pan if you wished. Continual focus would not be a problem. You could set up a little to one side of center field and possibly be able to get first base and the batter, pitcher combo without too much panning.
Depending on whether a rt or lft handed batter!! I do alot of panning with a 420 FD lens, and Ive done baseball from first base with a 300 2.8 with great results. The picture quality is excellent.

Check out my website at www.ronsrail.com for the various lens combinations.

Good luck!!

Best

I'm having trouble seeing the difference between the two.. couldn't I just mount my EOS lens on an EF adapter and save tons of money? What difference would it make?

[Chris Hurd]

These are two completely different tools.

The EF adapter is for mounting PHOTO lenses and the resulting field of view is equal to seven times the focal length (50mm x 7.2 = 360mm on an XL1 / XL1S). See this link.

The Mini35 is for mounting MOTION PICTURE lenses and it preserves the original focal length and depth of field (20mm = 20mm on an XL1 / XL1S). See this link.

[Andrew Paul]

I have the EF adaptor but seem to have lost the instruction booklet that came with it. Does anyone have any idea where I can get another one, or could someone possibly photocopy one for me. Any help would be much appreciated. I live in the UK.

Many Thanks

Andy Paul

[Rob Lohman]

You can download the manual from the Canon site, go here:

http://consumer.usa.canon.com/ir/con...1#New%20Window

Go to the link under "Product User Guides & Manuals" and on
the next page select "English manuals". The fifth link down will
be for the EF adapter:

EF Adapter Instruction Manual
ins_xl_ef_adapter.pdf