hi there,

does anyone has any examples of incompactibility of a third party lens or any equipment with canon EOS bodies. i wanted to buy a sigma high zoom/telephoto lens. but after reading about the incompactibility i dropped the idea of doing so. but i haven't seen many examples of the same. has anyone experienced with this incompactibility.

thanks

-- sajeev (chack74@yahoo.co.in), February 18, 2002

Answers

I used to own a Sigma 70-300 APO Macro. I got rid of this lens because I wanted a USM lens (I replaced it with a 70-200 F4L) and higher optical quality. However, I did try it on my father's (now mine) EOS 3, and it did not work.

-- Isaac Sibson (isibson@hotmail.com), February 18, 2002.

I used a Sigma 28-300 on my EOS 3 for several months before upgrading to Canon primes for their optical quality. The lens was fully compatible with the EOS 3, and also works properly on my wifes Rebel 2000. The autofocus is relatively slow, but I never had any trouble with its operation.

-- Derrick Morin (dmorin@oasisol.com), February 18, 2002.

Oh yeah - I also have, and still use, a Sigma 17-35 HSM lens. Optical quality is much better than the 28-300, and the HSM is pretty good. This lens also works properly on my EOS 3, Elan 7E, and my wifes Rebel 2000.

-- Derrick Morin (dmorin@oasisol.com), February 18, 2002.

Any new Sigma, Tamron, Tokina, etc., lense you buy now will be fully compatible with any Canon body presently for sale. They have all been fully upgraded to work with anything Canon is selling now. But the older lenses may not be. I had a Sigma 14mm f/3.5 that won't work with the Elan 7 for instance but worked fine with my older Elan IIe. So new lenses are safe, old ones are not.... As long as you don't upgrade your camera body to something Canon has yet to announce. Like maybe the new D60 that should be announced next week.

That's the real problem. The unknown future. More camera bodies are upgraded to the newest, latest & greatest, than are lenses. How much new technology do you want/need in a lens (Okay, USM, IS and DO are pretty slick, but you get what I mean.) It's the pits when you are forced to upgrade your lens, when all you want is a new camera body.

-- Jim Strutz (j.strutz@gci.net), February 18, 2002.

You're not forced to upgrade your lenses.

Any Canon EF lens will work on any Canon EOS body without modification.

The reason you're "forced" to upgrade is that Sigma and Tokina etc do not pay canon for a license to the interface specifications between lens and body. They have to reverse engineer it, and the problems which people blamed on the canon bodies were in fact due to the incorrect interface on the third party lenses. If the lenses are re-chipped, they work fine.

Thus, the recommendation is to stick with Canon lenses. Not only will you avoid such compatibility problems, but you'll also get better lenses in terms of optics, focus and available features.

-- Isaac Sibson (isibson@hotmail.com), February 18, 2002.