FD lens adaptor

[vladcjelli]

Seen a couple of nuggets of info on this, but wanted to see how it applies to me.

Recently bought a second hand Canon 400d, as per my other thread, and enjoying it.

Been chatting about it at work, and as a result, one guy has brought in his old AE-1 Program. Not used for years, he's on about getting what he can on ebay for it. He's quite happy to let me have the lenses if I can use them.

One is a canon 50mm 1.8, the other a makinon(sp?) 80-200. Both FD fitting obviously.

My initial research suggests I can get an adaptor ring which will let them work, but only really for macro work as the distance from the sensor knackers up the focal range. These seem to be about a tenner off amazon. I have seen the adapters with the cmpensation lens, but don't want to spend too much more on a purely experimental toy.

I'm quite happy with this, quite fancy messing about with them, and for a tenner, what can go wrong?

Will I be able to get some interesting results with them, or should I trade them in and just split the proceeds with him?

[Killwilly]

Generally FD lenses don't work very well on EOS cameras using the standard adapter. However, there is one that does work very well. but its not cheap at about £70, see link below.


http://www.thelensdoctor.co.uk/page14.html

[DIW35]

There are two types of adapter for fitting a FD lens to an EOS camera. One has no correcting lens, and using this adapter means you lose the ability to focus at infinity because of the distance that the adapter moves the lens away from the sensor. The other type has a corrective lens, which means you retain the ability to focus out to infinity, but the quality of the correcting lens may not be the best and can lead to a degradation in image quality. In either case the lens will operate manually, both in terms of focussing and aperture setting.

[velocemitch]

I looked into this a while ago and came to the conclusion it just isn't worth the effort.

[vladcjelli]

But, to get down to brass tacks, is it going to be possible to get some interesting shots, considering the only outlay is going to be a tenner?

I realise I won't be using either lens as a walkaround, but if only for picking up shots of butterflies and similar in the garden, it's got to be worth a punt?

[LongQ]

vladcjelli said:

But, to get down to brass tacks, is it going to be possible to get some interesting shots, considering the only outlay is going to be a tenner?

Depends what you mean by "interesting" but I think the answer is probably "no".

vladcjelli said:

I realise I won't be using either lens as a walkaround, but if only for picking up shots of butterflies and similar in the garden, it's got to be worth a punt?

I don't recall the Makinon brand ever being rated much back in the day. The 50mm is a decent lens but really it's not going to do anything interesting for you - maybe with a reversing ring and a set of extension tubes it might if you are prepared to get into manual control and can find some light for some macro stuff but then your extra spend will exceed a tenner.

I have a 3 working FD based bodies and a number of lenses (2x 50mm f1.8 and an f1.4 for example) plus some 70/75-200/205/210 zooms (A mix of Vivitar and Canon) and 2 FD/OES converter options. One of the convertors (from Canada) works pretty well with a 600mm lens (specifically designed for it) and makes some sense given the adapter cost me about £90 and the lens about £400 so I get a fairly decent 600mm+ (with the adapter) prime that on a crop body gives and equivalent of about about a 1000mm at about f6.3. Ish. (You lose a little extra light with the adapter.)

About the only benefit of the smaller FD lenses is that you get, by default, full manual control, so manual macro extension ring sets are lower cost ... but that's about the only benefit. Unless you shoot a lot of video, in which case fully manual noiseless lenses may be worth investigating but you might then want to consider converting them properly (eg. see the link posted above) and that may be limited by lens and will alsmost certainly cost more than a tenner extra.

On the other hand it would probably be less costly than a Lensbaby, though not necessarily more satisfying for that.

[S47]

Definitely worth considering canon FD 'supertele's if your thing is birds or wildlife,
I use 500 & 800mm Fd 'L' lenses - IQ is sublime and they are very sharp.
They can be bought for very reasonable prices if you look around, obviously manual focus, but for lenses of this length MF is the only way to ensure accurate focus IMO.
Buy one you won't be dissapointed
sofar as shorter FD lenses go it's probably not worth the MF effort, the exception would be for Macro work
Hope this helps

[Mr Will]

Personally, I'd angle to take the AE-1 as well and pick up a couple of rolls of film. A far more satisfying experiment than a badly converted lens on a modern DSLR.

[vladcjelli]

The reason I stopped playing with my old film dslr was the cost of developing.

Anyway, I've read that the pentax m42 (?) are a better match for a dslr body. Funnily enough I've just seen one in a local charity shop. Camera with 80-200 and a 50, for £40.

[vladcjelli]

So the adaptor arrived, and I've managed to squeeze a few shots off with it, through the 80-200 and 50.

Unfortunately, the aperture on the 50 is jammed wide open, but with the summer sun disappearing, it will still be usable at times I reckon.









The depth of field is so narrow, the manual focus and aperture all make it a swine to get anything. But when I do get something good, it'll be worth it.

[Killwilly]

I think it has already been said that closeup/macro won't be a problem, but it would be interesting to see a few infinity shots.

[vladcjelli]

Killwilly said:

I think it has already been said that closeup/macro won't be a problem, but it would be interesting to see a few infinity shots.

Imagine smearing your eyes with Vaseline, while sitting in a sauna, on a foggy day.

That's a bit like anything at infinity.

But, the question was never, " can I use an FD on an adaptor as a walkaround lens?", I only ever said would I be able to get some interesting shots with them.

On this early evidence, I think I will, and it's interesting just playing with them.

[S47]

Easy to get quality Infinty focus with Canon FD lenses on Eos bodies, here's the link:-

http://www.vp7.de/eosfd/eosfd.html

[vladcjelli]

S47 said:

Easy to get quality Infinty focus with Canon FD lenses on Eos bodies, here's the link:-

http://www.vp7.de/eosfd/eosfd.html

Easy peasy.

[S47]

Vlad
Canon 1.4x FD convertor is superb after conversion to Eos, of course you need Canon FD 'L' supertele's to get the most benefit from this conversion. My FD 800mm F5.6 'L' with 1.4x convertor and 7D body gives me a quality 1800mm F8 lens equivelant
All you need is a good monopod and you're ready to go birding
OOI the FD 800mm is about 1 kg lighter than my EOS 400mm F2.8 'IS' so not difficult to use at all.
Conversion also works with FD 1.7 + 2x convertors for even more range
The 1.7x works particularly well with full frame bodies where the IQ & bokeh is world class.

[Killwilly]

I have a Canon 100mm FD macro, which works very well and I use a lot. I bought a cheap FD-EOS adapter and removed the optics.