EOS R6 Mark II not communicating with Samyang EF 85mm MF lens

[EduardoMercado]

Hi, I have an EOS RP and have been using a Samyang XP 85mm f1.2 manual focus lens with an EF mount with no problems using an original Canon EF to RF adapter. I recently bought an R6 mark ii and when using this same adapter and lens, the place where the aperture is displayed disappears and taking a picture leads to a black screen that does not go away even when turning the camera off. If I take the lens and adapter as they are and use them on the RP, they work again. Other lenses work fine on the R6mii so I don't think the pins are damaged (plus it is brand new).

I have tried turning on the Release shutter w/o lens and turning the stabilization off with no success. 

Any help would be well received.

[Alain-Maury]

I’m an astrophotographer, and was using a 6D with the Samyang XP lenses which are way much better and less expensive than the original Canon ones. I really need the F/1.2 aperture and the sharp images in the corner which, sorry to say, Canon lenses do not provide since I very often make night sky videos. Decided to switch to the R6, and tried it this afternoon and got the exact same problem, camera crashes pitifully. It may not be Canon’s responsibility to make third party lenses work, but at least, it would be nice to advertise the problem before and therefore mention that these lenses will not work with that camera. Samyang is not exactly and unknown brand (like Sigma, Tokina, Tamron, etc…), and it would have allowed me not to spend more than 2200 dollars (EF lens adapter included) for a camera I won’t be able to use. I may try to purchase Samyang’s lens station (30 dollars) to reprogram my lenses and am really crossing my fingers it will fix the problem. Otherwise, I’ll sell the R6 and purchase a Sony camera which I know is working with these lenses. I have had many Canon cameras and lenses, for normal photography, am happy with them, but didn’t expect Canon to have the same poor philosophy as Apple (forcing the client to be in a closed system, I imagine they don’t give the SDK to others so that they can make their lenses compatible).

[Alain-Maury]

Good luck. I planned a trip to Iceland to photograph the northern lights. Bought a 1500 euros 24mm F/1.4 Canon lens, but it turned out to be terrible. When shooting stars, the stars in the corners were big seagull like images instead of sharp points. Believing I had bought a lemon, sent it back to Canon France ( I was in France in these years), which after inspection told me that my lens was in the norm, and that if I wanted sharp images I had to stop down to F/4 (!). Then why sell and F/1.4 lens since any cheap F/2.8 stopped down at F/4 ot F/8 would also give good images. I then bought the Samyang 24mm F/1.4 and it gives good images at full aperture. I don't care about autofocus, since I only work at infinity. In fact when I use an autofocus lens I disable the autofocus. So sometimes for certain applications, you just can't buy from Canon and at least there should be an option in the Canon software to disable any communication with the lens in order to still be able to shoot fully manual instead of crashing.

[daltonh]

I got my Samyang XP manual focus lens to work with my RF camera! I emailed the Samyang service support team, and they gave me a link to a Google Drive folder that has very easy-to-follow instructions that got the lens working perfectly! I used the Samyang Lens Station, but the program their website directs you to use doesn't communicate with the MF lenses, so you have to use the program in the Google folder. 

[David-R-M]

Thanks for the info. I eventually gave up and bought the Canon RF16 F2.8. This is cheap and small and works well. However, I now believe that the memory in the Samyang in which is stored the firmware is faulty. If I reload the firmware the lens works for a few days, or a week, and then it fails again. 

Since I bought a Canon FTb in 1974 (yes, really!) I have owned a lot of Canon equipment, but in 51 years none of it ever failed to work. And I still have the FTb and it still works...