EOS Rebel

[Peter]

M42-mount is easier to use with an adapter. My adapter works well with 7D, 5D and 1000D but not with my newer 6D. The light metering flashes every 10th second. Think I need an adapter without microchips.

http://kameratrollet.se/2013/03/08/fototips-fokusera-manuellt-som-en-kung/

If you are Norwegian you will have no problem to read it.

With croped sensor size you will not hit the mirror.

[Leecanon]

I saw in YouTube one guy in Korea shoot vintage lense with his crop body Fujifilm. He turned ON the mode "shoot without lens".
I don't know t5i has this program mode or similar. My self also looking for the cheapest ways to use our old but solid lenses for manual focus in video and still pictures. Good luck.

[kvbarkley]

There is no such mode for Canon Rebels.

[fpicabia42]

I ran into a similar problem with my EOS-1D Mk II. I had bought a Helios 44-2 vintage lens and a M42-EF adapter to make it fit he camera body. This adapter had no way to close the contacts with the AF system, so I always got an error message when I tried to use that lens and adapter with that camera.

It turns out that they make adapters wth "AF chips" attached-- little pieces of metal that close the contacts on the AF system on the camera body. As long as the contacts are closed, the camera is satified that there is a lens attached to the body, even if it can't receive any focus information from the lens (it thinks the lens has been switched to manual focus mode).

So I bought an adapter with AF chips attached, and the lens worked just fine with the EOS-1D Mk II.

Fast forward to when I bought a used EOS T5i... I thought I'd be ahead of the game knowing that I had an adapter that had the AF chipset. However, I ran into the problem you describe here. Since the adapter was telling the camera it had a lens attached, the T5i thought it should try to update the lens firmware. 

I thought I was stuck, but then I remebered I still had the old M42-EF adapter-- the one without the AF chips. Sure enough, when I tried it, the T5i and vintage lens worked together just fine. I do remember that when I switched to video mode, I got a message asking to make sure there was a lens attached. 

So,  the T5i must be able to operate without a lens (though I don't see how that would be useful at all). And it allows us to be able to use vintage, manual focus lenses with that camera body.

Hope this helps!

[ebiggs1]

I enjoy playing around with the old FD lenses probably because I have so many.  But I would not buy one.  They are so inferior to even the cheapest modern Canon DSLR lens.  CA must not have been as big of a concern to film as it is to a digital sensor.

I must have every adapter made for this conversion.

[fpicabia42]

No question that the vintage lenses aren't as sharp as the modern ones, but they are quite a bit cheaper, and fun to experiment with...

[ebiggs1]

Agree with the fun part.  The old FD's are pretty sharp its really the CA that's bad. Plus it make them appear not sharp.

If you had a sharp old FD lens it is probably just as good today as it ever was. However, there were some horrible cheapo  lenses back in the day and they are not worth the time or money to try and use.