Can my Canon EOS 5D Classic work with a Vivitar lens?

Question

Will a Vivitar 75-205mm 1:3.8 lens work with the Canon EOS 5D Classic? What mount lenses can I use for my camera?

Answer 1

Your Vivitar 75-205mm 1:3.8 is probably on older manual focus, film era lens. The only way to use it with your 5D is to buy an adapter.

Do you know which mount your lens is designed for? Look for markings near the mount like “N/F”, “C/FD”, “PK”, “OM” etc. Nikon, Pentax, Olympus, and M42 are some mounts that can be easily adapted. Some of the other mounts (Canon FD and Minolta MD) require an adapter with corrective optical elements that degrade the image quality.

More info here: http://www.bobatkins.com/photography/eosfaq/manual_focus_EOS.html

Here is an example of that lens with a Canon FD mount.

Here is the Nikon version

Answer 2

Canon EOS dSLRs can used lenses from the following six film SLR mounts with simple ring adapters:

• Leica R
• Contax/Yashica
• M42
• Nikon F
• Pentax K
• Olympus OM

Other mounts are shallower than the EOS mount, so would require an optical element (teleconverter) in the adapter to achieve focus to infinity, since adding to the lens's distance from the sensor plane would be like using a macro extension tube. Rangefinder lenses cannot be adapted to dSLRs.

See also: Can I use lens brand X on interchangeable lens camera brand Y?

In addition, the lens needs to have a manual aperture setting ring on it, or there's no aperture control, since manual lenses don't have electronic communication, and most lower-cost adapter rings cannot translate electronic communication to pass to the camera Upshot: no control over the lens from the camera body for focus or aperture: so no autofocus, no wide-open metering, no exposure modes other than M or Av. The 5Dc, however, does do accurate stop-down metering. And some "chipped" adapter rings can at least add EXIF information for the focal length and max. aperture of the lens.

One last caveat, the mirrorbox on the 5Dc may actually hit the rear element of an adapted lens. Some folks who adapted a lot of lenses would "shave" the mirror (grind it down) to avoid this. It didn't happen on most lenses, but it is another possibility to be aware of.