Canon FD lenses ???

Paul Male

Paul Male

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Ok, firstly sorry if this has been asked before.

I notice that FD lenses are much cheaper than EF lenses so my questions are these: :thinking:

1, Are the older FD lenses as good as EF ones?

2, Other than loosing the auto focus, will and FD lens fitted with a converter to EF give me good results on my digital camera?

3, Are there any pro's / con's I need to know before buying a FD to EF converter and then buying FD lenses?

Any advice any of you experienced guys can share with me would be appreciated. I'm not trying to be a tight arse here and buy cheap it's just that being out of work at the moment is making my budget for buying stuff very low and photography is about all I have at the moment that cheers me up.
 
FD lenses were very good, but are really best used on FD bodys. There are FD-EF adaptors, but I don't think they really work as well as some of the other adaptors for other lens fitments which can be made to work very well.
 
Unfortunately I believe the only way to fit FD to EF is to use a convertor with a lens in it which degrades the quality of the FD lens.Canon did manufacture a few convertors themselves when they switched mounts but I think these were only ever made available to the pro's.
 
The adapters also change the focal length too, slightly, like a teleconverter. You can obviously use a plain adapter - but you won't get infinity focus, so only really useful for macro work.
 
Ok, so buying FD lenses is a no go then .............. lol. Thanks for input guys.
 
Paul Male said:
Ok, so buying FD lenses is a no go then .............. lol. Thanks for input guys.
Click to expand...

About the only thing you can use them on (digitally) is a micro-fourthirds body, like the E-PL1 or GF-1 - having no mirror, there is enough room for a plane adapter and infinity focussing.
 
Paul Male said:
Ok, firstly sorry if this has been asked before.

I notice that FD lenses are much cheaper than EF lenses so my questions are these: :thinking:

1, Are the older FD lenses as good as EF ones?

2, Other than loosing the auto focus, will and FD lens fitted with a converter to EF give me good results on my digital camera?

3, Are there any pro's / con's I need to know before buying a FD to EF converter and then buying FD lenses?

Any advice any of you experienced guys can share with me would be appreciated. I'm not trying to be a tight arse here and buy cheap it's just that being out of work at the moment is making my budget for buying stuff very low and photography is about all I have at the moment that cheers me up.
Click to expand...

You could try sticking one on in reverse mode to do some cheap macro stuff.

Matt
 
I think there may also be an adapter for the Samsung NX cameras too. Obviously with the Oly you get sensor-shift IS on your FD lens!
 
I have and use an FD to EF converter with my Canon 350D and have done so for getting on for 4 years with no complaints, in fact I get really excellent results just as others do that have tried it for themselves.

I use a Hoya adapter which I obtained from E-Bay in 2007 for around £22 inc PP, I have almost 30 FD lenses ranging from 17mm to a 600mm Sigma mirror lens which I generally use on my F1n or T90, but now I use them a lot on the 350d for Bird photography.

Here is a link to a page on my site which shows what can be achieved with these lenses, the pictures are only 800 pixels wide but you will get the general idea of what is possible, then you can decide for yourself if you want to try it.

http://johnrollason.fotopic.net/c1429102.html

This question has come up lots of times on this forum and the answers are always predictable, I do not follow the herd mentality, I go my own way and am content to try something just to see what is possible.

I have 34 A4 prints on my lounge wall of pictures taken using FD on EF and I get very good feedback from visitors who have seen and admired them, so it cannot be that bad can it?


John :)
 
j37r said:
I have and use an FD to EF converter with my Canon 350D and have done so for getting on for 4 years with no complaints, in fact I get really excellent results just as others do that have tried it for themselves.

I use a Hoya adapter which I obtained from E-Bay in 2007 for around £22 inc PP, I have almost 30 FD lenses ranging from 17mm to a 600mm Sigma mirror lens which I generally use on my F1n or T90, but now I use them a lot on the 350d for Bird photography.

Here is a link to a page on my site which shows what can be achieved with these lenses, the pictures are only 800 pixels wide but you will get the general idea of what is possible, then you can decide for yourself if you want to try it.

http://johnrollason.fotopic.net/c1429102.html

This question has come up lots of times on this forum and the answers are always predictable, I do not follow the herd mentality, I go my own way and am content to try something just to see what is possible.

I have 34 A4 prints on my lounge wall of pictures taken using FD on EF and I get very good feedback from visitors who have seen and admired them, so it cannot be that bad can it?


John :)
Click to expand...

:thumbs:
I think for £22, it's clearly worth a gamble if you already have a load of FD lenses and a Canon EOS D body!

Andy
 
I'd echo what j37r said. If I have a really, really important photograph to take, I will stick to my EF lenses.

However, for just pootling about and experimenting I have used a number of FD lenses on my EF cameras, and had some very good results from them.
 
"I have 34 A4 prints on my lounge wall..."

That's a lot of pictures for one wall, best I can do is 7 A3.

I think "how many prints have you got on one wall" would be a great thread topic! :)
 
woof woof said:
"I have 34 A4 prints on my lounge wall..."

That's a lot of pictures for one wall, best I can do is 7 A3.

I think "how many prints have you got on one wall" would be a great thread topic! :)
Click to expand...

Expensive wallpaper and my house is too small!
 
I use either Aperture priority or Manual, the adapter stops the lens down to the taking aperture.

The Hoya adapter has a switch on the side marked A---L, once the adapter is attached to the camera, set the switch to L, fit the lens, then move the switch to A, this moves a pin to engage with the aperture lever on the lens.

You can move the switch to L so that you can focus at full aperture then move to A to meter and take the picture, I personally don't bother doing this, I focus and meter at the stopped down position.

The adapter has a magnification factor of 1.26, so on my 350d with it's 1.6 crop factor, this almost doubles the focal ength of any lens attached and you lose one stop of light.

Some lenses used with this have to be stopped down by at least one stop, or you can get a soft focus effect, mostly the short focal length ones 24mm, 28mm etc, seems fine with 100mm and above to use full aperture.

John :)
 
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