Canon gear question

Nate15

I recently came across an add for some Canon gear.

This is what is included:

EOS 650 SLR with a 35 to 80 MM lens and an 80 to 300mm lens
Flash, a little tripod, bag, and cleaning kit.
The add also comes with a pentax zx-50 20 to 80mm lens and carry bag also a cannon av1 old school.

It is said in the add that it has been well taken care of.

Here is the problem... will I be able to use the lenses off this old camera on my new Canon Eos XSi? This is the real question.

Also, is $120 for all this stuff worth the money? I am a new photographer so I don't know a lot about camera equipment. :dunno

Thanks

craig_d

Canon-brand lenses that work on an EOS 650 will work on any Canon digital SLR, including your Rebel XSi. If either of these lenses is from another company (Sigma, Tamron, Tokina, etc.), it may or may not work.

The EOS 650 was the first camera in the Canon EOS system, introduced in 1987. It's a film camera, not digital.

Canon had a few different EF 35-80mm lenses, all fairly slow (f/4-5.6) and I think all aimed at the consumer end of the market. All date from the early 1990s.

Canon never produced an EF 80-300mm lens, so I'm not sure if the one mentioned in the ad is from another company or if 80-300 is a misprint for 75-300, 100-300, or 80-200.

I'd say $120 is a fair price assuming that the camera and both lenses are in good working condition. If you mostly just want the lenses and don't care about the film camera, then the real question may be whether these lenses are better than what you have now. I would expect that the 35-80mm lens is no better optically than the 18-55mm lens that comes with the Rebels these days, and 35-80mm is an awkward zoom range for a Rebel due to its APS-C 1.6x sensor. The 80-300mm is harder to assess because we don't even know what brand it is.

However, one thing to note is that the flash unit probably will NOT work on your XSi. Canon has changed their flash technology a couple of times over the last 20 years and I don't think a flash that works on an EOS 650 will work on any of Canon's digital cameras.

mehampson

It looks like a good deal for what it is, but I think you'll be better off putting the money someplace else. Assuming you already have at least the kit lens that comes with the XSi, the lenses won't be very useful to you.

The Pentax lens will be useless without a mount adapter, and probably not very useful with one. The 35-80mm is a little longer than the 18-55mm IS, but not as wide and not as good optically.

Who knows what the 80-300mm really is; I'll bet the typo is the 300, making it the old 80-200mm. (I think the 650's kit lens was a 35-70mm, so it would make sense as a 35-80mm + 80-200mm bundle.) If that's the case, I haven't heard good things about that lens. A modern third-party zoom in that range wouldn't be much more expensive and would probably be a few steps up optically.

If you're thinking about this for film cameras, I think it's the opposite case: interesting/useful stuff at a bad price. The 650 goes for about $20 on ebay, or you could get a more sophisticated camera like a later Elan model for a bit more. The AV-1 with lenses seems to go for about $40 -- you would need to buy old FD mount manual-focus lenses to use with this camera, it won't take the EF mount. If you have $120 to spend specifically on a film SLR, I'd wait until you find a good deal on a used EOS 3, or one of the EOS 1 models.