designed for cameras like the early Pentax Spotmatics. Some of the lenses were very
good and can be found cheap.
There are also adapters made to fit older Canon manual focus lenses, but these will
either not allow infinity focus or will increase the focal length of your lens with a small
teleconverter built in. They are not really worth the price or limitations unless you have
a very special old Canon lens to use with your EOS camera.
There are also adapters made to fit the EF mount camera to Nikon, Tamron Adaptall
and other lenses. The downsides to using any of these adapted lenses is that they can
be manual focused only and they will have to be metered in the stop down mode. That
is, they will not have an auto aperture, so metering will be done in M, Av or P mode,
with a slightly darkened viewfinder. So focus first. The LCD and viewfinder display
will show the aperture as "00" but you set the aperture on the lens barrel with these
anyway.
7
Optional Equipment
7.1
Battery Packs / Grips
The BP-50 Vertical Grip is available for the Elan II/IIe. It is also a battery pack as
it takes either four AA batteries or the 2CR-5 that the camera normally uses. It also
has an additional shutter button to use in the vertical position and a switch to disable
it. It’s quite handy and I usually leave mine on unless I’m trying to reduce the size of
my photo equipment. One problem with the vertical grip is that it displaces the tripod
mount from directly under the lens axis to a position just over an inch to the right side.
It also would be more useful to add a Main Dial, AE Lock button and AF point selector
button. But at least this leaves an upgrade path for future cameras.
The BP-5B is an external battery pack that is used with the vertical grip. It has a
dummy 2CR-5 battery attached to a coiled wire, and at the other end is a battery pack
for 4 D cells. You can keep the batteries warm in your coat & still take pictures in sub
zero temperatures. The BP-5B is the same as a BP- 5 (for the EOS 5/A2/A2e) but adds
a top plate for the BP-50 that has a hole for the power cord to go through. You can use
the slightly cheaper BP-5 and modify the top plate yourself if you want.
7.2
Remotes
The RC-1 Infra Red Remote is also available and will trip the shutter from up to 15
feet in front of the camera. You can also use it to trip a tripod mounted camera from
directly overhead if you are close enough, so it can be used for macro and long lens use
as well. With custom function #5 set to "1" and the shutter set to bulb, a quick press of
the RC-1 will raise the mirror, wait two seconds, then open the shutter and hold it open
until you press the RC-1’s button again.
The RS-60E3 Cord Remote is short, but convenient for tripod use. It plugs into
the small connector at the lower right side of the camera. It uses a small mini-plug and
some stereo audio extension cords can be used with it to extend its range. It has a two
position switch just like the camera shutter button. Half a press to activate AF and a
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