Toronto Photography Meetup Group

Hey, I'm wondering if any of you out there have had much success mounting older FD lenses to digital EOS bodies.

I'm currently running a 7D and want to save a bit of Money on some lenses as well just be able to use lenses from my film camera. I've done some research into adapters but wondered if any of you have recommendations as I am a student and low on $$. I'm thinking something like this would work:

http://cgi.ebay.ca/CANON-EOS-FD-CONVERT ... 2eb0dac90f

I know you lose infinity focus with it, but is there any that you don't? And do large apertures work well with them? (f1.2, f1.4 etc) I heard adapters with glass make the lens a lot less sharp as well... Any experience with that?

Also, any problems with the AF? If I'm shooting fully manual the lens should work fine correct?

Any info you have would be greatly appreciated.

http://www.bobatkins.com/photography/eosfaq/manual_focus_EOS.html

Don't bother with FD...

I have tried with a Canon 50 f/1.2 FL. Not worth it at all. It gets so hazy and unsharp, it's unusable. No AF, manual focus but with metering on EOS bodies. No infinity focus is kinda useless unless you get a cheap FD macro lens. Adapter with glass, like I said, is completely useless.

If you want MF glass on Canon EOS, the best would be going for Nikon Ai-S glass. Most of the lenses are sharp, especially the fast ones. I've tried my share and it's the best option (ie Nikon 20/2.8, 24/2, 28/2, 35/1.4, 50/1.2, 85/1.4, 105/1.8, 200/2. As you can see, a lot more options than Canon FD/FL. You get metering too.

More info about Nikon to Canon here: http://tpmg.ca/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16829

Due to the shorter flange distance of the FD mount, there are no good adapters that allow you to mount them on most modern bodies.

Conversion is an option, and is oft-discussed on the alt lens subforum at fredmiranda.com, but is an extremely difficult proposition.

If you want to get some reuse out of your FD mount glass, the most practical option would actually be to get a mirrorless ILC camera like a Micro Four Thirds camera (2x crop factor) or the Sony NEX series (1.5x crop factor), and get an adapter off ebay.

There's much better options for cheap & easy adaptations than FD

I'd recommend M42/Pentax screwmount and Olympus OM mount as good starting points for cheap & good glass. After than Contax/Yashica and Nikon F mount are great options and you can also adapt Leica R and Pentax K (to EF-S bodies only for K mount).

If you want to shoot FD stuff on digital, look at a NEX or m43 camera or be prepared for some serious conversion work.