Why not Canon FD lenses? And other such questions...
 

I'm curious why everyone is jumping on Nikon lenses and no one is using Canon FD lenses, which also have external, manual aperture control? There's plenty of them, and they are cheap... or is there something I don't know?

I have a couple of them. I believe their mount makes them unadaptable. I'm guessing adding any adapter would result in the lens being to far away from the film/imager plane and loss of focus except at very short distances.

I use them sometimes, but they need an adapter with a lens to be able to focus to infinity.
This also makes them a 1.3 tele extender.
Here is a link to some tests with FD lenses.


Old Canon FD lenses on 5DMKII

There are lots of FD-EF adapters on Ebay for $20-$40, some are glassless but lose locus planes, some use glass to reestablish correct focus.

I'm asking because I've got a set of fast (under F2) FD primes. I don't love them and was going to replace them with Nikons, but wondered if anyone had other experiences with them.

FD's are for telephotos only on the eos
 

There is no infinity focus on anything I have except on a 300 f4. Research I found shows that the adapters only work with long lenses.+

I never heard of a Canon SLR lens w/o infinity focus in 40 years of shooting.

All my old lenses 24 35 50 135 all focus to infinity.

And if you check the video I posted it shows how dramatically different they are. 50 very soft 35 sharp and saturated 24 ditto. They all focus according to their markings with my adaptor from B&H.

My new Canon L lenses 17mm - 400mm all focus to infinity as well and are much sharper than the old Canons. I use them most of the time with the 5D. But I like the special effects you can get with the old lenses. I also use a Nikon 50mm 1.4 with adapter no glass, nice dof and easy to control.

I really think of the 5D as a convenient vid cam but mostly as a still camera. I do use it for special situations, when I need shallow dof, traveling light, or low light but it really is not a pro vid cam.

I believe he means with the use of an adapter.

Re FD lenses:
After doing a little more research, there are two types of adapters you can get, ones without glass, that won't let the lenses focus to infinity, and ones with glass that allow infinite focus.

So, assuming the focus isn't an issue, what reasons are there that you wouldn't want to use Canon FD lenses instead of Nikon?

I think you've answered your own question. To get infinite focus with an AI lens, I can use a $15 adapter. To use an FD lens with infinite focus, I need a more expensive adapter with an extra piece of glass in the chain.

To turn the question around, why exactly would I choose FD over AI glass?

More expensive = $40... not that big a deal.
The extra glass... may or may not be a big deal depending on the quality. Does anyone know for sure?

Because if you are me, you already own a set of F1.8-F2 FD prime lenses? :)


So I guess my question is... is there anything quality wise that FD lenses lack that Nikon AI's have?

In that case, FD lenses are perfect - and easily worth the $40 to try them out. :)

Just bought an adapter, I'll post screen grabs when I get it.

So Dylan,

Which adapter did you bought? And do you have any screen grabs yet?

Greetings

I bought an adapter without glass. I can tell you that I'm totally unsatisfied with it.

I'm able to use a couple of Tamron lenses (with something called an "Adaptall" on them, though I can't figure out if that's part of the lens or if it's something permanently attached to the lens) but any of the Canon or Sigma FD lenses I have won't work.

I purchased the infinite focus adapter with the glass.
My best technical description is that the picture looked like suck. (cmpared to nikons w no xtra glass)
I've snce sold all my FD lenses (part of a 35mm adapter package, which they were great with). The adapter is just not a good thing.
If anyone wants my FD adapter, email me. :)

Thanks for proving that Dylan. Everyone in this business tries to cheap out and it is refreshing to hear from someone who did and discovered why it is bad to cheap out usually. Even my Nikons, some of them look decent, but some of them look like you know what. I recently bought two Canon lenses, the 17-40 f4 and the 70-300 VR 3.5-5.6. I am glad that I did.

Dan