"Piesse" wrote in message
ups.com...
I have been lurking this newsgroup for a while, getting a lot of useful
information. I now have a question.
I am one of the (many?) owners of contax/yahica systems who have been
left without a smooth path to digital photography.

Huh? You've got the smoothest path around. Get a Contax to EOS adapters for
your lenses and a Canon 5D.

I am just an hobbyst, and I don't have any of the more expensive Zeiss
lenses, but still I have a good range of stuff and I guess that some
could be occasionally useful even after getting a digital body (for
one, the normal 50/1,4 planar could turn out a nice portrait lens, or
my macro set could still be used).

Exactly! (Although that's on the APS Canons, not the 5D.)

Searching around, it seems that adapters exist for using manual C/Y
lenses on Olympus and Canon.
If I understand correctly, to use them on any of those cameras, after
buying and mounting the adapter, one should first frame and focus
manually with the lens wide open, then meter manually closing the
diafragm at the desired F stop (without it being shown on the
viewfinder). Somethig to which one could be get accustomed, but clearly
limits the situations in which it can be done probably to still photos
of when using a wide angle lens with broad DOF.
What may change between different models is the usability of the
fiewfinderfor for manual focusing, since all of them are designed
primarily for autofocus.

One way to try would be to buy a Contax to EOS adpater and a used cheap
Rebel _film_ camera (from KEH). These are older models, the screen is
different, and they're not cropped, but you could determine if they actually
work for not all that much money.

And should I bother at all?

Yes. Your old Contax/Yashica lenses are not junk, and it would be a shame to
waste them.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan