An Inexpensive Lens Adapter

There are certain brands that I refuse to buy, support, speak kindly of, or even use.  Sometimes, however, a reason related to practicality arises and I am stuck having to give in and purchase one of these brands simply because no other options exist.  As such, I'm stuck with three old Canon EF-mount lenses yet Canon is one of those brands you will not find me supporting in any way.  Don't get me wrong, they were great in the Canon AE-1 Programmable days but I'm not liking their options in the digital world.  Actually, I find their digital cameras very uncomfortable to use, even painful.  I also find their color rendering and tonal qualities to be quite bland but, admittedly, that is more of a personal preference.

I had purchased these three lenses on the used market back when I first purchased my Sony cameras.  The Sony E-mount system was very young at the time so very few lenses were available in their new E-mount.  One of the great things about this Sony E-mount is that it is easily adaptable to use lenses from other mounts and that was definitely needed back in those early days.  

At the time, I was having a difficult time waiting for Sony to design and manufacture lenses that were quite long in focal length for wildlife as well as lenses that were wider than average for landscapes.  There are tons of used Canon lenses for sale on the used market (many dirt cheap due to a large supply and little demand) and a good adapter that provides autofocus was available so I purchased a few old Canon lenses.  

In an effort to stay as practical as possible, I am still using these lenses when needed about ten years later.  I don't love them but they do a decent job at filling my needs.  Now I am expanding a different lineup of cameras that has a different lens mount than the Sony E-mount.  I actually was using this camera line when I purchased my first Sony gear about ten years ago.  This line of cameras has improved significantly over the past decade so it was worth going back to it.  Plus, it is a far less expensive line than the Sony E-mount line.  I'd prefer to stay exclusively with Sony but the costs of the far better Sony gear is reaching beyond my budget now.  

I only purchase photography gear on the used market but, whether purchasing new or used, this other line of cameras and lenses runs about 50-75% the cost of my Sony line.  So, the practical side of me had returned to this line of cameras for only certain purposes.  Being as practical as I can, I decided to see if I can now adapt these old Canon lenses to this other mount, micro four thirds.  This has only become a viable option in recent years.

I found a rather inexpensive lens adapter for adapting Canon EF lenses to the micro four thirds mount.    This lens adapter was about a fifth of the price I paid for my Sony E to Canon EF adapter so I felt it was worth a shot.  Plus, if it didn't work, I could always return it.  

I was able to run some preliminary tests last night and this morning.  I had planned to roam around outside looking for wildlife to shoot but it is raining out so I'm staying indoors.  So far, though, I'm really impressed with this inexpensive lens adapter!

My Panasonic camera body seems to have no problems controlling these Canon EF lenses.  Autofocus works surprisingly well...  perhaps even better than on my Sony E mount bodies and the lens adapter for those Sony camera bodies was quite expensive.  I can fluidly control the aperture too.  The one Canon lens I have that sports lens stabilization seems to work fine.  Combine that lens stabilization with the in-body image stabilization of my Panasonic camera and keeping the image very still is a piece of cake even at long focal lengths which is really the only place it is needed.  

The primary reason for finding a lens adapter that works well is so I could use my Canon L 400mm f5.6 lens on my better Panasonic camera body.  This would be a great combination for wildlife.  I've captured some awesome photos in the past using this old Canon lens on my Sony camera bodies but I'm always looking for something better and especially at an affordable price.  So far, this giant lens seems to be working exceptionally well on my Panasonic G9.  In fact, it might actually be working better than on my Sony camera bodies.

I'll have to wait for better weather (no rain) but I'm really hoping the rest of the wildlife photography features of my Panasonic G9 work well.  The autofocus on the Panasonic G9 has an "animal detect" feature that would be awesome to use with a long telephoto lens like this Canon lens.  Since the autofocus seems to be working just fine (actually, far better than expected) I suspect the animal detect feature will work just as well.

Up until now, I had been using a piece of junk adapted Olympus lens for my long telephoto needs (wildlife photography) when using my Panasonic camera bodies.  This crappy Olympus lens was frustratingly soft and autofocus was rather clunky yet it was my only option for long focal lengths with my Panasonic bodies.  I weighed the options of purchasing a newer Panasonic lens but thought it would be wiser (ie, far less expensive) to try adapting my old Canon lenses.  The Panasonic lens I wanted would cost around $950 on the used market but the Canon EF lens adapter was considerably under $100.  I don't have the budget for the Panasonic lens so, being practical, I chose to try the under $100 option.

Fortunately, this dirt-cheap adapter is anything but cheap.  Cheap describes a lack of quality but this lens adapter is a high quality product.  Dirt-cheap does imply costing almost nothing and that is what I mean by calling this adapter dirt-cheap.  The quality is great, however, and it works far better than I had even hoped. 

So, the primary lens I wanted to adapt was my old Canon EF L 400mm f5.6 lens.  A 400mm lens on this Panasonic body with its relatively small four-thirds sensor would provide views the same as using a massive 800mm lens on my Sony camera body.  This is some serious extra reach.  Honestly, I wasn't too optimistic that this combination of old SLR lens and newer digital camera body would work well for wildlife.  So far it seems my lack of optimism has been ill-founded.  

As you can see, this particular Canon lens is physically long...

One of the first things I pointed this camera and lens combo at last night was a light bulb strung across our backyard.  The background behind this light bulb was filled with a thicket of branches.  In most situations, it would be realistic to expect the camera would not focus on the light bulb but instead focus on one of these branches with the highest contrast.  Fortunately, I had no problems focusing quickly on this light bulb.  I was instantly impressed.

My ultra-wide Canon lens did a great job on focusing on a bottle of cologne in less-than-ideal light.  My Sony cameras with this same old Canon lens always struggled in similar situations.  Again, I was quite impressed.  I couldn't fault this dirt-cheap adapter on anything.

This morning, shooting out our living room window in the rain, my Sony camera body with the Canon lens was having difficulty focusing the long Canon lens.  The light was dull since it was raining and dull light always makes autofocusing poor when using adapted lenses.  The Sony camera body kept focusing on raindrops in this environment.  At least it was accurately focusing on something but those raindrops are not where I wanted to focus to be.  Low, dull light with adapted lenses is usually an environment that causes all sorts of focusing woes so I wasn't surprised by seeing these problems arise this morning..  

That being said, I actually had no problems with this new adapter on my Panasonic camera body!  That was a surprise.

I focused on the branches in the foreground, below, and then pushed another function button on the camera to tell the camera to quickly change the focus point to the background...  

...the focus point instantly jumped to the low contrast mountain top in the background and focused it well...  and instantly (photo below).  This was in very dull lighting, with a very low contrast mountaintop, through raindrops with poor visibility.  Now this was very impressive!

Here, below, are the same environmental conditions.  My focus is on the porcelain insulator on top of a utility pole quite a few houses away from me indicated by the red box that I overlaid onto the image.  This first shot, below, is a normal view the human eye would see of this scene without any magnification...

Here, below, is the same scene shot with the Panasonic G9 using the adapted Canon EF L 400mm f5.6 lens.  As with the previous test shots, I had absolutely no problems getting the autofocus to consistently land right on this tiny porcelain insulator all that distance away...  though raindrops, lousy lighting, low contrast and rather lousy visibility.  Again, quite impressive.  

Here is another shot of this old Canon lens on my Panasonic G9 camera body.  My Sony camera bodies are actually smaller than this Panasonic camera body so this Panasonic body feels nicely balanced in the hand with this big, long lens compared to how my Sony bodies feel with this same lens.  

All three of the old Canon lenses had no problems focusing quickly in these lousy lighting and visibility conditions.  That is quite impressive and, honestly, quite surprising.  

I'm looking forward to getting outside in sunnier weather to capture some photos of wildlife.  That will be the next test of this lens adapter.  Hmmm...  it would be nice to try using this Canon lens/Panasonic camera combo for a few shots of the moon too...