EF lens adapter recommendations for future mirrorless camera purchase

[bsblmtns619]

What’s up y'all, first time poster here in Canon forum, boom 💥 here’s my question, currently own a DSLR, all my lenses are EF mount. Looking to buy a R body, and I understand I need an adapter to use my EF lenses on a R body. (I understand you can’t go the other way) Is a Canon brand adapter necessary or is it ok to go with an unbranded name? I’ve found a few on eBay and but just curious or is it better to go with Canon? Appreciate ya’ll 

[johnrmoyer]

I suggest a Canon brand adapter. The plain one without control ring seems best to me.

All of my EF and EF-S lenses work better on my EOS R5 than on my EOS 80D.

The third party adapter might not pass through all of the electronics and might not be as structurally strong as the Canon adapter, but I have not tried a third party adapter.

I have used an Urth adapter for my nea50 year old Minolta lens from a film camera. Since the lens has no electronics and is not very heavy, this works fine.

[bsblmtns619]

Thank you John, first time here and one can never stop learning in everything we do. Thanks for the answer, was kind of leaning that way (Canon brand) but never hurts to ask. With name brand, I know it’s tried and tested. Appreciate your help. 🤙

[p4pictures · Accepted solution]

There have been posts on the forum where other members have had issues with third party adapters, and those issues disappear when using the Canon adapters. I have both the plain adapter and the control ring one and they both get used with my various EF lenses on the EOS R6 / R6 Mk2 / R10 on a regular basis without any issues. 

[March411]

I'm one of the people that p4pictures is referencing, I used or tested several third party adapters and ended up with the Canon. 

The challenge I had with the third party adapters was inconsistency, lenses would rack attempting to lock onto the subject. There were also times when the lens would lock and I would have soft images, my keeper rate was being impacted. You can recreate hardware but writing to correct protocols for communication appears to have been a challenge.  

I moved to the simple canon adapter and had zero issues and I used it on both the Canon and Sigma EF lenses. As  johnrmoyer suggests pick up the plain one without control ring.

I thought that the control ring would be great but it sits really close to the body and found that it just was accessible enough quickly to make it useful, for the extra expense. 

[p4pictures]

That's an interesting difference Marc, I found that the control ring adapter was really helpful for me as it meant that the control ring was always in the same place. On the RF lenses the position of the control ring depends on the dimensions of the lens, and I find I'm less reliable at instinctively accessing the control ring instead of the focus or zoom rings on RF lenses.

[March411]

Hey Brian, I would agree that the inconsistency on the control ring location on the RF lenses is a challenge. Overall I have stopped programming the control ring and have all my functions on the body dials and buttons. 

On my EF 35mm it was no big deal, the lens is nice and compact. On the longer lenses I found that sliding the hand that was supporting the lens all the way back to the control ring located so close to the body when shooting action was problematic. It created unbalanced support of the setup and really wasn't set up for speed. In a studio environment or outdoor portraiture it was fine but sports or wildlife it simply slowed me down. On body controls simple worked better, faster and more efficient for me when shooting action/wildlife.  

[Tintype_18]

Good to know for future reference if I buy one of the R cameras.

[ebiggs1]

"... Is a Canon brand adapter necessary or is it ok to go with an unbranded name?"

I can take this a step further and say, it is never a good idea to buy any camera accessory that is not Canon brand. That includes batteries, grips, flash, or EF to RF adaptors, etc. The only time I suggest to go off brand is if Canon doesn't make what you want or need. An example might be the super zooms of the EF era. Canon did not make one so off brand was the only option.

[JeffXB]

“…it is never a good idea to buy any camera accessory that is not Canon brand.”

I can’t say I fully agree with you on this. What about the Canon camera strap that’s included with most, if not all, of their cameras? IMHO there are plenty of 3rd party straps that are far superior, more versatile and much more comfortable to use. Now I don’t participate in this practice, but I think about the only thing the OEM straps might be good for is self-flagellation! 🤣

(@ebiggd1 - Sorry mate, I couldn’t resist, just having a bit of fun. In general I do agree with you about 3rd party accessories)