The latest round of thriftin’ for lenses has netted me an almost complete kit of Canon EF lenses, quite a few miscellaneous filters, a brand new spare battery charger and as a side effect of the way I’m picking up spare bits, one long-range 35mm SLR kit complete with a brand-new battery and 4 fresh rolls of film – all for under a c-note.
My new spare 35mm kit. The big 70-300mm Sigma lens fits my DSLR, but the chipset firmware isn’t compatible, so I’ve loaded up the best of the 35mm bodies I had with it and the also not-digital-compatible Speedlite 300EZ flashgun. This Canon EOS 650 was the very first camera that used the EF mount system, and the lenses that came with it (except the Sigma) are the old-style higher quality lenses with metal mount points and a focus scale window, unlike the modern EF offerings in this range. This kit also came with a fresh battery still in the packaging, and 4 rolls of 35mm film, ready to go.
I’ve read about Sigma being willing to “re-chip” old lenses to make them compatible for modern DSLRs, but further investigation says they’ve stopped doing this since about 2011. No big deal, the other two lenses were worth what I paid for the whole kit, and I suppose it won’t kill me to have a decent film rig handy for backup.
Two more new lenses, first-generation Canon EF’s with the metal mounts and focus range windows. One’s a fairly fast 28-70mm 1:3.5-4.5 telephoto, and the other is an even faster 50mm 1:1.8 prime lens. Next on my list: a Canon EF 75-300mm. If only the Sigma would have worked, I’d be about done now.
I also picked up a set of Hoya magnification filters in +1, +2 and +4 that fit the EF lenses (but not the EF-S lens). That might help make up for my lack of a good macro lens, we’ll see. Anyway, I’ve been playing around and figuring stuff out and it’s a huge kick! Thrift store lens shopping is da bomb!
The 28-70mm lens with all 3 Hoya mag filters screwed on can get in pretty close, but the depth of field is very shallow. This was auto mode, so I might be able to manually open up the apeture and get better focus on the surrounding slugs.
nifty! I’ve noticed the nikons getting snapped up too. I seldom see the good cameras in the stores.
The Canon 50mm 1.8 is what got me addicted to primes. You bought the whole package for not much more than that lens costs. Nice.