Can you put Canon lenses on a Nikon camera?

I have a Nikon D300 and I have a family member who has lots of Canon lenses and they want to give them to me as I'm doing photography at A level. I was wondering is it possible to get some sort of an adapter so I can put the Canon lenses onto my Nikon camera?

Yup you can adapters to use the Canon lenses on a Nikon body. And vice versa.a quick internet search will bring up loads of options like these ones below.

http://www.rugift.com/photocameras/nikon-canon-eos-adapter.htm

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Nikon-Lens-Canon-1000D-7D-5D-1D-Mark-II-500D-adapter-/260660159345?pt=AU_Cameras_Photographic_Accessories&hash=item3cb08e6371

The Canon EF mount is actually bigger than the Nikon mount so you can't use Canon lenses with a Nikon body however you can use Nikon lenses in a Canon body with an adapter.

If they were the older Canon FD 35mm lenses this would be a definite no, due to the focal plane length, and the adapter would have to go 2mm inside the camera body. (FD lenses won't work on a EOS body)

If it was possible you would also lose electronic control of the aperture, and all focusing would need to be done manually

Sorry for the long answer, but there's a lot of options for you. The short answer is find out what lenses you're getting. If they have an red "L" written on them and a red ring around the front the lenses are worth taking a look at. If they're primes, they're worth having a look at. Anything else, just forget about it.

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Yes, but there's a catch. Due to all Canon SLR systems having a shorter flange focal distance than that of the Nikon F-mount, no lens can focus to infinity without suffering a decrease in image quality. Secondly Canon's EF mount has no mechanical linkage between the lens and camera, and all aperture control is done electronically via the camera body, due to this problem you can only use EF lenses at maximum aperture on any camera other than a Canon EOS or EF-M body.

The adaption works very well the other way round, there's even an adapter for open aperture metering on a Canon body with a Nikon lens.

Solution one:
Glassless adapter. This adapts the EF bayonet to a Nikon F bayonet. Because of the larger diameter of an EF mount the lens will effectively be a macro lens.

Solution two:
Adapter with lens element. This adapter effectively acts as a teleconverter, and corrects for infinity focus. However all of these adapters have a negative effect on the image quality.

This company specialises in manufacturing adapters. They can pretty much create you an adapter for anything, http://www.srb-griturn.com/slr-adaptors-for-any-lens-376-c.asp They are obviously limited by the issues discussed above.

Now the ideal solution is to find out what lenses that you would be getting and is it possible for you to sell them. If you can just sell you should see if they're of any value. Canon FD lenses aren't usually very desirable as they can't be adapted without the above problems to any DSLR system except for FourThirds. Canon EF lenses can sometimes be of value, generally fast primes, and fast L-series zooms fetch good money. The plastic junk they were churning out during the 1990s and early 2000's are pretty worthless.

If you can't sell the lenses consider getting a compatible camera. A Canon EOS film camera costs as little as £20, and £40 for a better one. A Canon EOS Digital 10D or 300D can be purchased for £150. And a Canon FD camera can be as little as £10. If the lenses are specialist lenses then it may be worthwhile going Canon.

Waste of time, the D300 is an excellent camera, you can get an adapter to mount a Canon but you will loose at camera functions like metering, auto focus, proper exposure with flash, in other words you are left with a f*cked up camera

No, unfortunately you can't do that.