Adapter for Canon camera lenses

stefano

I want to digitalise myself and get myself a decent Digital camera, and I am loyal to Canon. I currently have a SLR Canon A1 35mm, which really has not seen the light of day for some considerable time. But I have, during my time, accumulated a very good array of lenses, and wanted to know if anyone knew of an adapter to fit my manual FD lenses onto the body of a Canon digital camera.

Lirin

Canon did market an adaptor from FD lock to the variations within EOS, I can't remember the name though.

http://www.virtualvillage.co.uk/fd-lens-to-eos-ef-body-mount-adapter-for-canon-005200-028.html?utm_source=googlebase&utm_medium=shcomp

There's one similar, not a Canon original though. The problem with the mount adaptor is it doesn't work on all lenses- The original Canon mount only works on certain tele lenses, and is quite expensive- somewhere round the £200 mark last time I checked.

The problem with this as well is you will suffer slight vignetting on your lenses, and the optical adaptors will affect the image quality as well, your metering will be slightly out, and you'll typically lose a 2/3 f-stop.

If you have the manual focus FD lenses you will have better luck, as the contacts on the adaptor often lag, making the mid-80's autofocus FD's incredibly frustrating to focus. Most places advertise the mount as manual focus only, the cheaper replicas have completely dropped any attempt at catering for the handful of auto-focus FD lenses. You would also need to convert the focal distances, as these will change- around 24-28% usually.

Basically, you will lose some of the optical quality on the lens (a pity, as I have FD lenses in the house with incredible quality.), it's manual focus, and you will suffer vignetting and the loss of f-stop. It can be done, but the loss of quality and light negates it.

I had considered it when I switched, but after playing around a bit decided to maintain a camera with an FD setup separately.

Lirin

Found the Canon original spec-It should be pointed out that this is a pretty rare piece, it's not cheap, loses 2/3 f-stop, corrects for the different distance to the focus plane by enlarging the image by 26%, and only fits certain lenses. This is the list: (if your lens is not on it, you can still use the inexpensive adapter, but won't be able to focus to infinity)

FD 200mm 1.8 L
FD 200mm 2.8 RF
FD 300mm 2.8 L
FD 300mm 4
FD 300mm 4 L
FD 400mm 2.8 L
FD 400mm 4.5
FD 500mm 4.5 L
FD 600mm 4.5
FD 800mm 5.6 L
FD 50-300mm 4.5 L
FD 85-300mm 4.5
FD 150-600mm 5.6 L

stefano

Shame, one of my lenses is on that list, 300mm F4, but my favourite lense, 135mm F2, is not. Maybe I should just sell the lot and invest in a digital camera with a zoom lense. Never been a fan of zoom lenses, as the F/stops are never too exciting.

Lirin

It is, certainly, as I thought a good few of the bog-standard FD lenses were much higher rated than the equivalent in digital- I wouldn't use the 18-55 that comes standard with the EOS system, as it is complete rubbish- very soft quality, and poor focus.

You can adapt, but if you're considering it get a cheap copy mount on Ebay and see what you make of the quality. I do know of one person who changed the mounts in the camera to accommodate, and it worked very well, apparantly, though I never saw it myself.

The big problem with FD to EOS is the contact plates are in completely different places, resulting in hit and miss lens capabilities when you do use the adaptor mount.

googler

stefano wrote: »

Shame, one of my lenses is on that list, 300mm F4, but my favourite lense, 135mm F2, is not. Maybe I should just sell the lot and invest in a digital camera with a zoom lense.

Why can't you buy a digital camera body and a telephoto lens or two? Canon don't just make zoom lenses

stefano

In theory I would need a 35mm, 50mm and 135mm. The costs of these may be quite high. And I doubt if the 135mm would be equal in quality as mine is. F2 is reasonably fast.

googler

stefano wrote: »

In theory I would need a 35mm, 50mm and 135mm. The costs of these may be quite high. And I doubt if the 135mm would be equal in quality as mine is. F2 is reasonably fast.

...the cost of which will be offset by the sale of your 35mm kit?

Lirin

Unfortunately A1's don't fetch much these days- maybe 50-70? Canon have a refurbed shop on Ebay, well worth checking out for lenses etc.
The digital primes are very high quality in Canon EOS, if you ignore the bog-standard rubbish. Tamron do decent quality lenses as an alternative to Canon, as do Sigma. No real quality difference, though from experience I prefer Sigma as they're stronger, heavier lenses, and last longer.
Calumet is a great place to search lenses, www.dpreview.com is a great site to compare/review.
You can pick them up cheaply, if you look- I've bought a good bit of kit on Ebay before, and only had problems once.