Why Cant you use film lenses on Olympus DSLR's?

I am currently looking for a 50mm macro lens for my Olympus E-520. There are several 50mm macro auto focus lenses for film cameras. They seem to sell for about $150 in Australia a new lens is approx $750.

Does anyone know why you cant use these film lenses? I know you can use Nikon standard lenses on digital slr's.

Older Olympus lenses relied on mechanical linkage for transfering aperture value and the autofocus approach of the last 35mm camera they did was, to say the least, short of the mark, it is always a bold move for a camera maker (or housing manufacturer for that matter) to switch lens mount, it can set you ahead of the competition in some case or leave you with a bunch of very unhappy user. In the case of Olympus, theyre was nothing to loose, former AF products being of such poor performance, they were better of to cut off the past and start with a clean slate, which they did and it has proven a wise move from their parts. All their current optics are optimized for digital photography, unlike the two big boys Canon & Nikon which have a long list of 35mm lenses that fit but do not perform that well on digital sensor, notably the wide angles.

Olympus does sell the MF1 adapter ring for OM manual focus lenses but as Jean has said why would you want to go backwards. Some of the Manual OM lenses are quite good but the Zuiko digital lenses are much better and the 50 mm macro is as good as any made. You may want to watch fourthirdsphoto.com buy/sell forum where I have seen several macro lenses for sale in the past.

Phil Rudin

Ardy,

Fork out the extra cash for the 50mm macro 4/3 lens. You'll be glad you did.