Pentax lens on a Canon body question . . .

[mannesty]

Has anybody here any experiences to share about fitting Pentax K mount lenses to a Canon EF/EF-S mount body?

The reason I ask is that I have been offered a low mileage Canon 40D body + grip at a very reasonable price. My eventual aim is to acquire a Canon MP-E 65mm 1:2.8 macro lens which will be the only Canon lens I buy for it.

So I'm wondering if some or all of my Pentax lens collection can be used with one of the various adapters that are available, some of which give AF confirmation, some not.

I'm not switching to Canon, I'm just curious to find out how a 1:1 - 5:1 macro lens performs as I've seen some encouraging images taken with it, albeit on a much higher spec. body.

[blackcloudbrew]

Well, my daughter has a Canon 40D and I have a K-mount to EOS converter I got off ebay. She isn't interested in this type of thing and I have issues with her camera (it's completely illogical and I can't imagine how anyone gets pictures from it!). But...the converter is chipped to talk to the Canon EOS and register correct focus (that apparently is important). There isn't anything like our easy green button stop down metering on our Pentax's on the 40D. Pure manual focus with this system and metering is tricky. The bottom line is that it works but clearly the Canon isn't very user friendly for this set up.

This setup is essentially equivalent to an M42 mount on our cameras. Hope that helps.

[mannesty]

Thank you BCW, that's the kind of information I'm after.

PS: Please don't ban me from the forum if I buy a Canon.  I'm only thinking about it coz Pentax don't make a 5x magnification macro lens.

[robt61x49]

Please don't tell anyone so I am not banned from PW, but I bought a Canon 5D MK II on which I hoped to mount my Pentax A*600 and DA*300. I too bought a $49 adapter on eBay.

I suppose technically one could say it worked, but in reality, it would have been impossible to use in the field - at least for me. The adapter had some electronic doohicky that supposedly passed info to the camera for auto exposure. Auto focus did not work and manual focusing was impossible because the lens stopped down so the view finder was very dark. I could not figure out how to automatically set exposure so even with the electronic doohicky the best I could hope for was full manual operation. 

I gave up on it and would give it to you for free, but I tossed it in the garbage as soon as I figured out how to get the damn thing off the lens.

[blackcloudbrew]

Frank, you have a lot of good guy credit built up because of your jaw dropping images (an A*600mm is just lens porn as far as I'm concerned BTW, because you KNOW we all want one). Anyway, like I said, the converters work but they are just like using an M42 adapter on my K10/K20 without the really cool ease of the Pentax green button. You do make a good point in that it is a bit interesting removing the converter (the same can be said for the Pentax M42 adapter BTW).

So Peter, I think it's safe to say that your mileage may vary but this can be done.

[robt61x49]

. . . an A*600mm is just lens porn as far as I'm concerned . . .

Porn star with A*600 (lens hood fully extended) proving that size does matter



“I shall not today attempt further to define [pornography]; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it [A*600]….”

           - Justice Potter Stewart in 1973

[blackcloudbrew]

Now that's what I'm talk'n about!

[spyglass]

fitting Pentax K mount lenses to a Canon EF/EF-S mount body?

I have heard that you can put lipstick on a pig......  so I guess you could dress up a Canon body with a sexy Pentax Lens   (but whats in it for the Pentax lens)  

Spyglass

[mannesty]

Thanks for all your comments.

I think the 'real world' experiences mentioned here have drawn me to the conclusion that it just is not a practical proposition to mount P glass on a C body.

Thanks again.