4 Responses to “Can you interchange lenses between Digital and Film SLR cameras?”

• Gene S

  June 25, 2009 at 11:11 am

  I don’t think so with Canon, maybe some early and now outdated models did. With a Nikon you can. The D40, D40x, and the D60 require Nikon Mount “DX” Lenses only though. All others will accept all Nikon lenses, models like the D70 and D80 will not meter. With the D100, D200, and D300 along with others you can actually program the camera body to accept a manual AIS lens to a specific focal length and get full metering. Certain long focal length mirror lenses will interfere with the viewfinder mirror and make contact with it which could be a serious problem
• anthony h

  June 27, 2009 at 4:32 am

  Yes, it is possible depending upon the brand and type of lens.

  For example:
  Canon autofocus film camera lens (Canon EF mount) can be used on a Canon digital SLR. Your focal length field of view will be magnified by 1.6 on most Canon SLRs (i.e. a 50mm lens will have a field of view like an 80mm lens, when used on a digital SLR).
  **Canon manual focus film lenses (Canon’s FD mount) cannot be used on digital SLRs
  **Canon EF-S autofocus lenses are designed for digital only.

  Nikon: Nikon’s autofocus F-mount lenses can be used on their digital SLR lineup (you get a 1.5 multiplier, so for example a 50mm lens looks like a 75mm lens). Autofocusing will depend upon the lens type and SLR body model. For example, the D40 and D40x will AF with AF-S Nikon lenses, but regular AF lenses will only work in manual focus. The manual focus Nikon F-mount lenses (typically an AI or AI-S lens) will mount on the digital SLRs. They may or may not meter, depending upon the camera body.
  **Nikon DX lens lineup is designed for digital only.

  Sony–will take Minolta autofocus lenses but not the older Minolta MC or MD manual focus lenses.

  Pentax–Just about every Pentax lens going back to the manual focus K-mount will mount and work to some degree.

  Olympus–nope, the film lenses won’t fit the 4/3 mount digital SLRs from Olympus.

  Others: Praktica, Contax, etc. Nope. Out of luck.
• Edwin

  June 27, 2009 at 4:05 pm

  If your Canon film camera is the EOS mount then lenses for it will work with the Canon DSLR. If its the older FD mount it will not.
• David M

  June 28, 2009 at 1:36 am

  Yes, you can provided they are both EOS mount cameras. Canon changed their lens mount in 1987 so any camera built after that will have the same lens mount.
  Other brands are the same way.

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