Canon Lens on Sony A99?

Hi All!

I need help with making a decision.

I consider switch from Canon to Sony. Is there any of you who has used/is using Canon EF- L- Lens on Sony A99? And if so, are you satisfied with results. Maybe show some shots! I´ve seen some shots with Minolta lenses mounted on Sony A99 and they were good.

I very appreciate your response! /David

Infucus10 said:

Hi All!

I need help with making a decision.

I consider switch from Canon to Sony.

Click to expand...

May you explain to us, why you're ready for a switch?

Infucus10 said:

Is there any of you who has used/is using Canon EF- L- Lens on Sony A99?

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You can use on a Sony A7/r with a dedicated adaptor, but afaik it's impossible with Alpha-mount (because of a shorter optical offset between the lens and the camera for the Canon, if I'm not wrong).

Infucus10 said:

And if so, are you satisfied with results. Maybe show some shots!

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And you? Can you provide some shots to know what kind of photography you like?

Infucus10 said:

I´ve seen some shots with Minolta lenses mounted on Sony A99 and they were good.

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Possible for a few only.

Regards,

Infucus10 said:

I consider switch from Canon to Sony. Is there any of you who has used/is using Canon EF- L- Lens on Sony A99? And if so, are you satisfied with results. Maybe show some shots!

Click to expand...

The short answer is NO. The somewhat longer guess is that there may be adaptors out there but due to flange distances being problematic to adapt, these would need glass elements to allow infinity focus - which impact image quality.

Some went the hard way and had the mount changed - but hardly worth the effort IMHO.

Infucus10 said:

I´ve seen some shots with Minolta lenses mounted on Sony A99 and they were good.

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That is possible with all Minolta AF (=A Mount) lenses simply because Sony took over that mount for their Alpha DSLR / DSLT line of cameras , and many legacy Minolta A Mount lenses are good indeed. But, when adapting Minolta MD (manual focus) lenses via an adaptor, the same issues surfaces like with Canon lenses: You need an adaptor with glass or to change the lens mount.

Have a look at the recent Sony E Mount FF cams, they provide much easier ways to adapting lenses from almost any make

Cheers,

Ralf

Michel J said:

Infucus10 said:

I´ve seen some shots with Minolta lenses mounted on Sony A99 and they were good.

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Possible for a few only.

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An few only?

Just to avoid this being misunderstood by the OP: All Minolta AF lenses work on the a99 without adaptors - Sony Alpha A Mount DSLRs and SLTs inherited the Minolta AF lens mount.

The manual focus Minolta MD mount lenses are a different story - they need an adaptor with glass or a reworked mount, and I would agree to say the effort is worth it for a few only, like the Minolta MD Rokkor 58/1.4.

Michel J said:

Michel J said:

I´ve seen some shots with Minolta lenses mounted on Sony A99 and they were good.

Click to expand...

Possible for a few only.

Click to expand...

That's a bit misleading isn't it??

Curtis Khan said:

Curtis Khan said:

Curtis Khan said:

I´ve seen some shots with Minolta lenses mounted on Sony A99 and they were good.

Click to expand...

Possible for a few only.

Click to expand...

That's a bit misleading isn't it??

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Which lenses? Minolta AF lenses? If so...

Frankly, do you know many Minolta AF lenses which can survive to the 4000 LPH shock of the A99 sensor?

Zooms:

http://www.dxomark.com/Reviews/Best...els-analyzed/Best-Zoom-for-your-Sony-Alpha-99

Primes:

http://www.dxomark.com/Reviews/Best...ls-analyzed/Best-Prime-for-your-Sony-Alpha-99

Well, not more "misleading" than "make believing", I guess...

As good as Minolta lenses are, they can't do miracles in this new digital era.

Anyway, most of my Minolta zoom can`t survive to the little A37, so the Flagship °_O

( )

Regards,
--
Michel J
« Having the latest gear is nice, but great photographers don't have to have it. They can shoot good stuff with anything »

Michel J said:

Curtis Khan said:

Michel J said:

Michel J said:

I´ve seen some shots with Minolta lenses mounted on Sony A99 and they were good.

Click to expand...

Possible for a few only.

Click to expand...

That's a bit misleading isn't it??

Click to expand...

Which lenses? Minolta AF lenses? If so...

Frankly, do you know many Minolta AF lenses which can survive to the 4000 LPH shock of the A99 sensor?

Zooms:

http://www.dxomark.com/Reviews/Best...els-analyzed/Best-Zoom-for-your-Sony-Alpha-99

Primes:

http://www.dxomark.com/Reviews/Best...ls-analyzed/Best-Prime-for-your-Sony-Alpha-99

Well, not more "misleading" than "make believing", I guess...

As good as Minolta lenses are, they can't do miracles in this new digital era.

Anyway, most of my Minolta zoom can`t survive to the little A37, so the Flagship °_O

( )

Regards,
--
Michel J
« Having the latest gear is nice, but great photographers don't have to have it. They can shoot good stuff with anything »

Click to expand...

Much of Michel's information is wrong--it has no basis in fact. I have been using ALL my Minolta legacy AF lenses with my Sony a100, a900, and a99 with no problems whatsoever. As examples of the most severe tests for performance, for wildlife photography I routinely use my Minolta 600mm f4 on my a99 with excellent results. This is with and without the Minolta 1.4 teleconverter. Always very fast focus, including for fast-flying birds, with very sharp results. With less reach, I use my Minolta 300mm f4, with and without the 1.4tc, also on the a99 with very good results. I have used both telephotos for many thousands of shots at the highest shutter frames per second on the a99 with no failures at all. The camera lens combinations excel at maintaining tack sharp focus even for birds flying directly towards me at these high frames per second--something that the equivalent Nikon and Canon cameras cannot do as well with their mirrors flopping up and down. (Note that the cited dxo ratings do not cover this aspect of performance.) I also got very good performance with these same lenses on the Sony a100 and a900.

Also note, this being the "digital era" is largely not relevant. Until recently, 35mm film had higher resolution than digital sensors, so lenses that were good for film are good for digital, too.

jdc562 said:

Michel J said:

Curtis Khan said:

jdc562 said:

jdc562 said:

I´ve seen some shots with Minolta lenses mounted on Sony A99 and they were good.

Click to expand...

Possible for a few only.

Click to expand...

That's a bit misleading isn't it??

Click to expand...

Which lenses? Minolta AF lenses? If so...

Frankly, do you know many Minolta AF lenses which can survive to the 4000 LPH shock of the A99 sensor?

Zooms:

http://www.dxomark.com/Reviews/Best...els-analyzed/Best-Zoom-for-your-Sony-Alpha-99

Primes:

http://www.dxomark.com/Reviews/Best...ls-analyzed/Best-Prime-for-your-Sony-Alpha-99

Well, not more "misleading" than "make believing", I guess...

As good as Minolta lenses are, they can't do miracles in this new digital era.

Anyway, most of my Minolta zoom can`t survive to the little A37, so the Flagship °_O

( )

Regards,
--
Michel J
« Having the latest gear is nice, but great photographers don't have to have it. They can shoot good stuff with anything »

Click to expand...

Much of Michel's information is wrong--it has no basis in fact. I have been using ALL my Minolta legacy AF lenses with my Sony a100, a900, and a99 with no problems whatsoever. As examples of the most severe tests for performance, for wildlife photography I routinely use my Minolta 600mm f4 on my a99 with excellent results. This is with and without the Minolta 1.4 teleconverter. Always very fast focus, including for fast-flying birds, with very sharp results. With less reach, I use my Minolta 300mm f4, with and without the 1.4tc, also on the a99 with very good results. I have used both telephotos for many thousands of shots at the highest shutter frames per second on the a99 with no failures at all. The camera lens combinations excel at maintaining tack sharp focus even for birds flying directly towards me at these high frames per second--something that the equivalent Nikon and Canon cameras cannot do as well with their mirrors flopping up and down. (Note that the cited dxo ratings do not cover this aspect of performance.) I also got very good performance with these same lenses on the Sony a100 and a900.

Also note, this being the "digital era" is largely not relevant. Until recently, 35mm film had higher resolution than digital sensors, so lenses that were good for film are good for digital, too.

Click to expand...

I have a few old Minolta lenses which I use on my 24MP Sony A77, which has (if my arithmetic is correct ) a slightly higher pixel density than the new Sony A99ii. The Minolta 35-70mm f4 zoom is clearly outresolved by the A77 sensor. Even stopped down to f8 it produces nice sharp images images only up to about A4 print size. Whereas my Minolta 80-200mm f2.8 is astonishingly sharp, and only very slightly less sharp than its best when wide open at f2.8. It's also very fast indeed to focus, scarily fast.

I also have a few Sony primes which are old designs inherited from Minolta and said to be optically identical to the old Minolta lenses, just with updated lens coatings. They can all produce three pixel transition high contrast edges which is as sharp as you can get. No question of the sensor getting near to outresolving them.

I feared when I upgraded to the 24MP A77 that my general purpose bright day opportunistic snapping lens, the Sony 18-250mm would be found disappointingly lacking -- that the high resolution sensor would simply reveal more of the lens's inadequacies. After all, "everyone knows" that these wide range zooms are are too severely compromised in IQ to be any use on a modern high MP sensor. It's true that its IQ is lacking compared to my better lenses, which is why I have them. To my surprise however its images looked better at 24MP than they did on my older 14MP body. They just didn't improve as much as the better lenses. In other words, while it's falling behind the better lenses, it's not yet outresolved.

In short, there's a lot of exaggerated nonsense talked about high MP sensors "outresolving" older or cheaper lenses.

Ralf is right. The short and best answer is that Canon Lenses do not adapt properly* to the A99ii (or Any A-mount).

Many A-mount users use Minolta lenses because the A-mount was created for Minolta.

*by properly, I mean with AF and without a correction lens

Infucus10 said:

Hi All!

I need help with making a decision.

I consider switch from Canon to Sony. Is there any of you who has used/is using Canon EF- L- Lens on Sony A99? And if so, are you satisfied with results. Maybe show some shots! I´ve seen some shots with Minolta lenses mounted on Sony A99 and they were good.

I very appreciate your response! /David

Click to expand...

Canon L lenses can be ebayed for little loss or not a loss at all if in good condition.

You can even make a small profit if you bought them a while ago.

I did that 8 years ago and never looked back.