Okay, I realize this might sound nonsensical to some (most?) of you, but I am wondering if anyone has heard of or would have an interest a permanent EF to RF lens mount conversion service?
More than once I have tried to mount a native EF lens to an RF body, forgetting the damned adapter. These are the times when I wish I could just do a permanent mount conversion, as Canon did at the factory with the great whites.
I know this would likely reduce the resale value of any lens, possibly by a lot, but I still think it might be a cool option.
I would welcome any thoughts.
Edit: I do realize that I could just dedicate an adapter to a lens and then wrap some gaffer's tape around the seam to achieve a poor man's version of this, haha.
I think rather than make the adaptor a permanent fixture on an EF lens it might be better to just purchase a separate adaptor for each EF lens. At present my adaptor stays on my camera as I swap lenses, but when I finally get some RF lenses I will face your problem. I think I will just get some extra adaptors as they are cheap enough.
I mainly use RF lenses and only have a few EF lenses left. I bought an adapter for each EF lens and leave it attached at all times. Thus I never forget the adapter. I suppose a dap 'o crazy glue would make it somewhat permanent...
I would guess the cost to ship it to a conversion service, have it done, then ship it back would be greater than the cost of a dedicated adapter. Though I could see the value you are thinking of, I imagine a market would not develop unless the cost of the adapters went through the roof.
Critters wrote:
The lens would not focus on the sensor since it would be too close unless you added an extension, at which point you gain nothing.
Richard
Yes, of course. Any conversion would have to include the appropriate extension as part of the new mount.
There is actually a cine lens company that has done something like this, which is where I got the idea. I happened across this some months ago and can't remember the reference, but if I find it again I'll post it.
• still use their EF lenses on DSLR bodies as well, or
• expect to sell the lens and want potential buyers to include DSLR users.
So I don’t think there’s a huge market for what you suggest.
What I would like to see is an adapter that can be semipermanently attached to an EF lens, for example using Allen bolts rather than the spring-loaded release. I think this would be cleaner, less susceptible to accidental disconnection, and possibly lighter. I think it could be lighter than the existing adapters because it would not be carried around by itself, so could be less rigid, and it could come in grades according to how heavy the lens is. Right now, the adapter has to be built to hold Canon’s heaviest big white, even when permanently attached to a much smaller lens. It’s metal when many of the barrels it attaches to are plastic.
Also, white adapters (for the varous shades of “white“ the lenses came in) would be nice.
Every time I go back to my DSLR body I think the EF to RF mount transition was a mistake in terms of compactness.
Here's a simple cost effective solution to your problem.
Buy this for $53.99
And buy this for $6.54
After applying J_B weld and mounting the adapter to any EF lens that you want to permanently destroy, you simply grind the locking tab off then fill any voids with more J-B weld, let dry then grind and polish to a beautiful finish. Then add a little touch-up paint of your choosing.
DONE!
Simply repeat above steps for any other EF lens you want to permanently destroy.
It'll be the best $60.53 + tax you've ever added to your thousands of dollars worth of EF glass.
My thoughts when adapting to the R/RF system was to either stay with my EF glass, and leave an adapter permanently on my R5, or if I got a mix of both EF & RF glass, to purchase an adapter for each EF lens.
This is definitely a "more time and money than sense" issue.
Just buy a dedicated adapter for each lens. You can easily sell the lens and adapters when you're done with them vs never selling whatever abomination you end up hacking together.
So, I found the outfit that gave me this idea. They're called Duclos Lenses, and they specialize in cinema optics. But they also have a retrofit service they call Cine-Mod that adapts vintage lenses for use in cinema applications (de-clicking the aperture, adding focus gearing, standardized 80mm front ring, etc.) As one option for this service, they will do a permanent EF mount conversion:
I bought an adapter for each of my big whites. I intended to not take them off.
I discovered that my 600+adapter does not fit in the old bag. And the other problem is that the EF 1.4x adapter needs to go on first. So its not practical or desirable to make it permanent.
And for my ef landscape lens I use the drop in variable adapter - because it saves carrying filters. I can quickly swap back and forth between ef lens. It's so good, I have not bought any expensive RF landscape lens.
So I just live with the situation on my 600 and 200-400 and ts17, ts24. I am just glad the lens work so well on the R5, R8.
I have three of the simple Canon EF-RF adapters, all purchased used (or near new) from the B&S board. Total spent: around $150 for all.
I still have several FF EF bodies: 1DsR and 5DsR, not to mention three or four APS-C.
All work well with no wobble. I can't see any reason to permanently change a lens that can so simply be solved with a removable adapter. I've not seen any focus issues due to misalignment.
I do the same with EF lenses to use on Sony FF bodies, and works superbly with TS-E lenses on Sony. Saves me a lot of money, and encouraged me to recently buy many EF lenses people were disposing of when upgrading to RF.
