Will old film SLR lenses work on a new digital SLR?

It depends on the camera brand. Some companies have recently changed the way the lens and camera fit together, so older lenses won’t fit or won’t do everything they should. The list below tells the story for each brand. Please be careful and check you camera and lens manual first, though - you can damage your camera or lens by fitting the wrong ones together.

Old film SLR lenses change a little when you put them on most digital SLRs. They actually zoom in a bit further, as digital SLRs only see the centre half of the picture. This is rarely a problem for long zoom lenses, as they will zoom even further on a digital SLR. But it is a problem for landscape photographers and real-estate agents who need wide-angle lenses, as the lenses won't see as wide as they did before. Most companies now make a new series of lenses specifically for digital SLRs to fix this.

If you have old lenses that you need to focus by hand, putting them onto a new autofocus SLR won't make the lenses able to focus by themselves. At first, I took the macho approach, thinking that I'd been focusing by hand for years, so it won't be a problem to carry on. I was wrong. Most non-professional digital SLRs have small, dim viewfinders (to keep the cost of the camera down), making manual focusing much harder than it ever was with film cameras. Autofocus is more than just a convenience these days.

Canon

Any Canon lens made after 1987 will fit any Canon digital SLR, but none of the old “FD” mount lenses made before 1987 will fit. The newer "EF" lenses have electrical contacts at the back where they join the camera.

Canon make an even newer series of smaller "EF-S" lenses that are designed just for their digital SLRs. Don't put these lenses on an old film camera - it will break the camera.

Nikon

Nikon have kept the same coupling for 50 years, so just about all lenses will fit, but they may not do everything. I’m happily using a 30-year-old lens on my professional Nikon digital SLR... but I have to focus it myself. Any Nikon autofocus lenses will focus automatically on any Nikon digital SLR except for the Nikon D40, D40x and D60. These three SLRs will only autofocus with newer lenses. To confuse the issue further, not all lenses allow all functions on all cameras. This table gives the details. Nikon instruction manuals normally have huge tables explaining what will and won't work together. If you have older equipment, make sure you read them.

Pentax and Samsung

Lenses from 1975 will fit. Autofocus lenses from 1987 will also focus automatically, lenses from 2004 will offer all features. These pages give all the gory details: Pentax's list, and a more detailed, clearer explanation.

Olympus

No... Olympus changed everything in 2003 with their “Four Thirds” system. Old Olympus SLR lenses won’t fit. You can get an adaptor to use them, but you'll lose most features. To confuse matters further, Olympus will also be making cameras that take the new "Micro Four Thirds" system...

Micro Four Thirds cameras (currently only the Panasonic Lumix DMC-G1)

Introduced in 2008 to finally shrink the SLR, Micro Four Thirds lenses are smaller than traditional SLR lenses because they don't have to leave room behind them for a mirror. Original "Four Thirds" lenses will fit (with an adaptor), but it's currently unclear which of the Four Thirds lenses will be able to focus properly with Micro Four Thirds cameras.

Sony/Minolta/Konica-Minolta

Any autofocus Minolta lens made after 1985 will fit and should give full (or almost full) functionality on any Sony or Minolta SLR. Konica-Minolta’s camera business was bought by Sony in 2006.

Sigma, Tamron, Tokina, Vivitar

These independent brands of lens are made to mount on cameras from just one manufacturer. In theory, they should be as compatible as the lenses of the camera manufacturer of the same vintage. But in practice, it’s not always true. I’ve heard several stories of old independent lenses not focusing accurately on new digital cameras, in ways that can’t be corrected easily in a service centre. New independent lenses won’t have any such problems... if they do, the manufacturer will fix them.

This information is for guidance only, and applies to most consumer lenses. You can damage your camera by fitting the wrong type of lens to it. Some lenses will break the camera’s mirror; others may damage the electrical contacts. So please be careful and check your camera or lens manual first. Some advanced functions have only recently been invented (such as the lens telling the camera where it is focused), so older lenses seem to work perfectly, but might not be making full use of the latest features on an SLR. Links to other sites are provided in good faith, but we can't take responsibility for their accuracy.