I can't believe I did thisto myself... £600 brick lens :/

[pipnina]

I thought I scored a real deal when I won the bid for a Canon 300mm f2.8 L (non is non usm) for only £600. Given the lens was originally over 4000 I felt pretty good about it.

Until I got my hands on it today. And learned that it WILL NOT manually focus and cannot be focused AT ALL unless a canon DSLR is attached to it. So it may as well be a brick as far as my astrocam is concerned!

I am beyond disappointed and to make matters worse, my normal DSLR is a Nikon so I can't even use it on that. I guess I can only hope that I can return the lens to the ebay seller and find another set of optics to try for compact and fast astro imaging unless anyone knows a way to hack it lol

[Elp]

A right bargain there but as you say useless for astro cameras. It's one of the reasons I avoid AF lenses as you can't even adjust aperture without a body attached.

[Peter Drew]

Quite often, real bargains can be resold at a profit.      🙂

[Nakedgun]

~

Is there no Nikon/Canon adapter available?

 

 

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[symmetal]

Sorry to hear this pipnina. Hacking the lenses is possible though it likely needs a microcontroller like an arduino to emulate the commands from the camera. Getting the wires to connect to the lens contacts is the tricky bit. This blog entry shows how one person did it along with a quick video showing it working. It;s referring to EF-S lenses but I'm sure EF lenses would use the same protocol. 🙂

https://howiem.org/wordpress/2016/07/07/motion-control-canon-ef-lens-hacking/

Canon EF-S lens protocol

I may have a go with an old lens, just for curiosity's sake. 

Alan

[wxsatuser]

2 hours ago, Nakedgun said:

~

Is there no Nikon/Canon adapter available?

 

 

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There is

Astromechanics Ascom Canon lens controller.

May be hard to get one as they are Russian and importing might be hard.

Plus not cheap.

Be aware although a very nice lens old versions may have issues with CA etc.
You may get a good one or not.

[Steve Ward]

Pop onto MPB and pick up a Canon DSLR to accompany it , real bargains around at the moment  as the "must have it" crowd are jumping to mirrorless and trading in the 'old' stuff.

And Park Cameras and WEX Photographic too.

[Mick J]

Another hack like @symmetal above

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/218975-arduino-ascom-focuser-mark2/?do=findComment&comment=3229017

 

[Adam J]

11 hours ago, pipnina said:

I thought I scored a real deal when I won the bid for a Canon 300mm f2.8 L (non is non usm) for only £600. Given the lens was originally over 4000 I felt pretty good about it.

Until I got my hands on it today. And learned that it WILL NOT manually focus and cannot be focused AT ALL unless a canon DSLR is attached to it. So it may as well be a brick as far as my astrocam is concerned!

I am beyond disappointed and to make matters worse, my normal DSLR is a Nikon so I can't even use it on that. I guess I can only hope that I can return the lens to the ebay seller and find another set of optics to try for compact and fast astro imaging unless anyone knows a way to hack it lol

One of these adaptors from Astromechanics would solve your problem. 

Astromechanics

You might be able to find one that is in someones old stock, I know FLO used to sell them. Apart from that it may be a problem importing. 

Maybe a wanted notice in the forum and on Astrobuysell uk. 

Adam 

 

Edited March 14 by Adam J

[pipnina]

8 hours ago, wxsatuser said:

There is

Astromechanics Ascom Canon lens controller.

May be hard to get one as they are Russian and importing might be hard.

Plus not cheap.

Be aware although a very nice lens old versions may have issues with CA etc.
You may get a good one or not.

 

4 hours ago, Adam J said:

One of these adaptors from Astromechanics would solve your problem. 

Astromechanics

You might be able to find one that is in someones old stock, I know FLO used to sell them. Apart from that it may be a problem importing. 

Maybe a wanted notice in the forum and on Astrobuysell uk. 

Adam 

 

My goodness! If I can get my hands on one of those it'd be just the ticket! It would solve the challenge of autofocusing as well which requires some jury rigging on manual focus lenses.

I've sent them an email as their website seems to suggest the UK doesn't impose the same level of sanctions as the EU... I await their response.

 

I'll hold onto the lens for a bit to see if I can get hold of the adapter. If I can it might just push me over the edge to buying an asi full frame camera haha. It's been my plan to downsize from my big scope to something faster and more portable so if this lens and adapter work... I'll be over the moon!

Thanks for the links both of you!

[pipnina]

On 14/03/2024 at 05:54, wxsatuser said:

There is

Astromechanics Ascom Canon lens controller.

May be hard to get one as they are Russian and importing might be hard.

Plus not cheap.

Be aware although a very nice lens old versions may have issues with CA etc.
You may get a good one or not.

 

On 14/03/2024 at 09:25, Adam J said:

One of these adaptors from Astromechanics would solve your problem. 

Astromechanics

You might be able to find one that is in someones old stock, I know FLO used to sell them. Apart from that it may be a problem importing. 

Maybe a wanted notice in the forum and on Astrobuysell uk. 

Adam 

 

Sergey from Astromechanics replied to me earlier, managed to work out a way for me to pay and that the UK does not impose the same restrictions as the EU so they can deliver it to me directly. They suggested 12-20 days on average until it should arrive, I await it patiently and thank you guys for letting me know of its existence!

Feels a bit wrong to buy from russia at this time but alas it seems they are the only ones who have made the exact part I need.

[symmetal]

Hope the one you're buying from Russia works out for you @pipnina. In your first post you said the lens was non IS and non USM, though it does say Ultrasonic on the label implying it's USM focusing. Did you get it cheap because the USM isn't working? How will yours focus if that's the case?

As they are quite inexpensive I've bought a set of these EF extenders to make it easy to get to the lens connections and have a go at interfacing with an arduino. I programmed my current arduino based autofocusers to use the Moonlite autofocus driver, to avoid having to write a separate Ascom driver, so it should be fairly easy to adapt it to create EF protocols I would think. 🙂

An official Canon extender is £170 for one, but these are £38 for all three so no great loss if I ruin one of them. It'll mean drilling a hole in the side of one of them to solder wires to the rear of one set of contacts.

Alan

 

[pipnina]

7 minutes ago, symmetal said:

Hope the one you're buying from Russia works out for you @pipnina. In your first post you said the lens was non IS and non USM, though it does say Ultrasonic on the label implying it's USM focusing. Did you get it cheap because the USM isn't working? How will yours focus if that's the case?

As they are quite inexpensive I've bought a set of these EF extenders to make it easy to get to the lens connections and have a go at interfacing with an arduino. I programmed my current arduino based autofocusers to use the Moonlite autofocus driver, to avoid having to write a separate Ascom driver, so it should be fairly easy to adapt it to create EF protocols I would think. 🙂

An official Canon extender is £170 for one, but these are £38 for all three so no great loss if I ruin one of them. It'll mean drilling a hole in the side of one of them to solder wires to the rear of one set of contacts.

 

Alan

 

Ah yes you're right there is only the original lens (the one I got, from 1987 https://global.canon/en/c-museum/product/ef270.html)

Which is not IS but does have the ultrasonic motor. Then the subsequent 2 versions are simply IS USM and IS USM II.

I just re-checked the ebay listing and they don't mention broken motors. I suspect I got it uncontested because of the very minor damage to the front element (two small chips, noticable but I suspect not ruinous to the image, won't know for sure until I can test it though!)

I still have my fingers crossed (now that I've been re-injected with hope due to this adapter) that it'll prove a very suitable replacement for my telescope.

[Bugdozer]

On 14/03/2024 at 03:14, Nakedgun said:

~

Is there no Nikon/Canon adapter available?

 

 

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I believe not every Canon lens is even possible to fit with an adaptor, due to Canon's "innovation" of making the auto focus motor part of the lens rather than part of the camera body with some models. I don't know whether that applies to this particular lens.

[pipnina]

10 minutes ago, Bugdozer said:

I believe not every Canon lens is even possible to fit with an adaptor, due to Canon's "innovation" of making the auto focus motor part of the lens rather than part of the camera body with some models. I don't know whether that applies to this particular lens.

This lens does have a built in motor, and given it was designed in 1987 that's definitely way ahead of its time as Nikon would use the in-camera motor until I think the 2000s. I suspect the need for the motor to be insanely fast to track sports and wildlife led to this design choice. The lens from reviews I've seen almost literally snaps into position on subjects, and this lens is big, so moving it (and quickly too) would put a lot of strain on a wimpy in-camera motor I think.

Regardless, all manufacturers use in-lens motors now and only pro tier nikon DSLRs have the built in motor for legacy lens support (Nikon D850, D7500 and similar). The bit that irks me is not being able to manually focus the lens AT ALL without it being powered. But then the lens wasn't designed for people who would care about that I assume...

[symmetal]

It looks like yours was the first Canon lens to have the the focus motor incorporated inside the lens pipnina, and also use the USM principle of operation. From Canon's website:

"In the early days of autofocus photography (Canon's first SLR with AF was the T80 in 1985), the AF drive motor was frequently located in the camera body or attached to the lens and drove the lens mechanically. In 1987, with the introduction of the EF lens mount and its fully electronic connectors, Canon was able to miniaturise the autofocus motor to fit inside the lens itself. This raised the possibility that each AF motor could be optimised for the lens it was fitted into, thereby providing faster autofocus.

However, there was still a need to create a high-powered AF motor for fast aperture lenses with larger focusing groups, which could work efficiently and deliver fast, smooth and quiet autofocusing. The result was the EF 300mm f/2.8L USM lens, with a ring-type Ultra Sonic Motor (USM) that was both fast and near silent. In 1990, new manufacturing techniques made it possible to reduce the cost of manufacture, and ring-type USM motors found their way into Canon lenses at a consumer price level."

Alan

[Nakedgun]

5 hours ago, pipnina said:

 

Regardless, all manufacturers use in-lens motors now and only pro tier nikon DSLRs have the built in motor for legacy lens support (Nikon D850, D7500 and similar). 

~

Not so. Pentax bodies support all lenses made up to the body's introduction (older bodies won't operate some newer lens designs), current bodies are compatible with all Pentax bayonet (K-mount) lenses mfd. since 1975.

 

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