3rd Party Lenses on Canon T2I

[Miguel Zamora Jr]

I am buying a T2I in a few weeks, and I was curious as if I were to uses lenses from still cameras (ofcourse with a lens converter) to shoot my videos would I still be able to produce quality images? I'm looking at brands such as Pentax and Yashica.

[Adam Brown]

Well, first off, the T2i is primarily a stills camera that offers video features (just for semantics) so you're still using the adapted lenses on the same system. And, yes, assuming you'd get an adapter-which, depending on the manufacturer could be anywhere from $10 up to a few hundred dollars-you could still produce "quality images."

 

However, quality is entirely subjective. There are quality lenses out there for Pentax (I know less about Yashica) but, these lenses I'm assuming your talking about are most likely older film lenses. Older lenses often lack multi-coatings and other features such as Image Stabilization that modern advancements in lens design now offers. Therefore, as a result, you'd be force to a.) use these lenses in a full manual mode, without any sort of focus confirmation, built-in TTL metering, etc. And, b.) the lenses would be more prone to flaring, chromatic aberration, and would in all likelihood be less sharp than their modern counterparts.

 

That is not to say that modern lenses are not without flaws. But, depending on your photographic experience, there is definitely an "ease-of-use" benefit if you're just starting out on a T2i to be able to learn metering and have focus confirmation.

 

If you already have these collections of lenses, I'd say it's best to test them out and see what you think of them. If the look you get is pleasing to you, and allows you to create the types of images you're striving to create, then you're all set. Although, if you're just starting out, I'd definitely recommend at least getting the kit lens or a Canon EF 50mm f1.8 in order to have something easier to practice with.

 

Have fun!