Are Minolta A mount lenses adaptable to Canon EOS DSLR camera bodys?
Yes and No:
Yes, with a appropriate adapter Minolta or Sony A-Mount lenses (those for Autofocus cameras) could be adapted to Canon EOS cameras with EF or EF-S mount!
There is no such adapter commercial available at the moment. But for example for the famous great Sony STF 135mm f/2.8[4.5] lens with apodisation element to get a good bokeh such an adapter would be helpful. Such a lens is only avialable in Sony Minolta A mount, not for Canon, not for Nikon, not for Pentax.
And in case I would one days get such a lens, I made the adapter now :-)
I would be good to use some alternative Sony a mount lenses on a EOS camera without doing a real lens mount conversion - this adapter is still a normal adapter without any lens modification needed. I worked for examle with a Sigma Super Wide 24mm f/2.8 lens with native Sony mount on my Canon. The Sony Zeiss lenses would be worth to be tested too - most the Sonnar 135mm f/1.8.
Not much motiviation to start such an effort?
Ok, I have a 20mm f2.8 Minolta lens, as pictured above. I would like to test this lens a bit on Canon EOS - and now I should tell about the "NO" regarding adptility:
This lens protrude much behind the mount, it is not usable without liveview on 24x36mm Canon cameras - the mirror will block!
And furthermore this Sony A mount lenses have no iris ring. I thought about a mechanism to close and open the iris with a thin crank, but this didn´t work out. So no iris operation.
But why did I really start to work on this adapter?
Because I could - and such thing didn´t existed before.
And because I made Canon EOS adapters for the Minolta SR mount lenses too, and could re-use the first sentence of that website.
I have done a lot of measurments, and startet my first prototype, and short afterwards my second prototype - cause the first one got damaged in the work.
A third prototype followed - but this was still not good enough to end the work:
After much turning, milling, filing and testing I got with the fourth prototype an adapter that was good enough. Lens fits good inside the adapter - a bit thight, I don´t use any set screws or such at the moment. I like such precise tolerances when buidling photo euipment gear.
This lens protrude too much behind the mount ~ 3mm. For the Canon EOS 5D 1, 1.5 or probably 2 mm are acceptable. Even with my slightly shaved mirror in my EOS 5D this didn´t worked out to work. On EOS crop cameras like a EOS 350D it works and reach infinity. This is no macro adapter, and it is lensless. No lens that kills the lens image quality!
The adapter itself is very thin and tiny - it fits inside the Canon EF mount.
Normal Sony / Minolta AF lenses have their iris closed normaly. With a cut to half cotton bud this could be done.
Please visit my other tinker work, or my DIY directory with ~1700 DIY links to other photo tinkering sites.