Old equipment on a new camera?

[daddy]

I got my Canon Eos 350D. Now I'm asking if can use my equipment (flash and lens) from my Eos 300 not D with the new camera. I asked the guy from the shop and he said I should not do this because the lens is not from Canon (sigma 100-300mm) and that the lens is too old. It could even harm the camera.

What do you mean? What about the flash (http://www.digit-photo.com/p-VIVITAR_Flash_736_AF_Canon-FLVI231182.html?PHPSESSID=86800dbe2aaddb2c9a930b0c 08735373#0)?. It was designed for the Canon Eos 300.

Thx

[George Riehm]

I got my Canon Eos 350D. Now I'm asking if can use my equipment (flash and lens) from my Eos 300 not D with the new camera. I asked the guy from the shop and he said I should not do this because the lens is not from Canon (sigma 100-300mm) and that the lens is too old. It could even harm the camera.

What do you mean? What about the flash (http://www.digit-photo.com/p-VIVITAR_Flash_736_AF_Canon-FLVI231182.html?PHPSESSID=86800dbe2aaddb2c9a930b0c 08735373#0)?. It was designed for the Canon Eos 300.

Thx

The person from the shop is at best misinformed. Any AF lens with a Canon mount will work fine on the XT. Manual lenses will work as well but will, of course, still be manual. Same goes for the for the flash.

[daddy]

Thx for your help. I was nearly sure that I could use my equipment but was confused by the opinion of the salesman. Maybe he just wanted to sell a lens :cool:

[Rhys]

Thx for your help. I was nearly sure that I could use my equipment but was confused by the opinion of the salesman. Maybe he just wanted to sell a lens :cool:

It's an unwritten rule - salesmen, whatever they sell, are full of baloney. Hardly any actually know about the products they're selling. I can recall one guy in a computer shop spouting all he'd learnt in the sales briefing at me, most of which was factually incorrect to say the least. I told him to learn about computers and walked away.

[coldrain]

The person from the shop is at best misinformed. Any AF lens with a Canon mount will work fine on the XT. Manual lenses will work as well but will, of course, still be manual. Same goes for the for the flash.
Some older lenses from Sigma actually do not really work on a DSLR, actually. This has to do with the signals used for communication about for instance selected aperture on the camera body (its the lens that has to actually set the aperture during exposure). I have an older 70-300 Sigma which will show an ERR99 when I try to select apertures over 5.6 (sometimes even at 5.6) and then you have to switch the camera off and on again.

The only way to know for sure if it is one of the problematic lenses is to try it on a DSLR, but I guess you can not at that store because the guy there thinks it may break the camera. Sigma used to offer to rechip some lenses, but I can not find any information about that anymore.

[daddy]

But will there be just an error messager or can it really harm the dSLR?

[George Riehm]

Some older lenses from Sigma actually do not really work on a DSLR, actually. This has to do with the signals used for communication about for instance selected aperture on the camera body (its the lens that has to actually set the aperture during exposure). I have an older 70-300 Sigma which will show an ERR99 when I try to select apertures over 5.6 (sometimes even at 5.6) and then you have to switch the camera off and on again.

The only way to know for sure if it is one of the problematic lenses is to try it on a DSLR, but I guess you can not at that store because the guy there thinks it may break the camera. Sigma used to offer to rechip some lenses, but I can not find any information about that anymore.

Thanks coldrain. Which Sigma 70-300 specifically? As it would be great to have Canon users avoid specific problem lenses in the future.

I've had this happen with Nikkor AF lenses when I forget to check the manual aperture ring (after using on an FE) which needs to be set to f/22 (or smallest aperture) so it can be controlled by the camera.

[coldrain]

Mine is the old Sigma 70-300mm f4-5.6 DL macro super, from circa 2000.

I find it highly unlikely you can damage your camera with a lens that just sends wrong signals back.