Looking For An Lens Adaptor: Old AE-1 to T4i

[NeverTooOld]

Hi! I'm new to TPF and am pretty much a retired novice. However, I have an older AE-1 and three lenses which I would love to add to the new T4i I just bought. Can't seem to find any info on whether an adaptor exists for this. Any suggestions?? Thanks!!

 

[Big Mike]

Welcome aboard.

Those old lenses are designated as Canon 'FD' lenses. Any of Canon's SLR cameras since they introduced auto focus are designated 'EOS'.
So what you want is an FD to EOS adapter. That should help your searching.

When Canon first went with AF SLR cameras, back in 1987, they switched the lens mount, so any of the older FD lenses would not fit on the new EOS (AF) cameras. This pissed people off, so Canon made an adapter. They are rare and expensive, as they were only sold to established pros at the time.
There are now several cheaper versions available, but they aren't perfect.

The main problem with using these adapters, is that by necessity, they move the lens further from the camera (film plane) than they were designed for. So, for example, if you bought one of the 'glassless' adapters, the lens could no longer focus to infinity. Might work for close up stuff, but otherwise not very useful.
So that is why most of the adapters have a lens element to them. This corrects for the increased distance (acting as a small teleconverter). The problem with that, is that your image quality will be subject to the quality of the lens element in the adapter...and they aren't known to be great.

So the usual consensus is that while it is possible, it's usually not worth the effort, unless you have some really good FD lenses.

Other issues are that (obviously) the old lenses won't auto focus on the modern camera. Also, the camera can't electronically control the aperture of the lens, so you'd have to do that manually.
Again...it's doable but usually only worth the effort if you have good glass (or you just want to play around with old lenses).

 

[Buckster]

I use FD to EOS adapters for my 500mm f/4.5 FD mount lens with my modern Canon DSLR bodies; 5DMKII and 7D.

Mike's gone over the issues pretty well above. On the adapters with the lens that allows for infinity focus, you can remove the glass lens for anything other than infinity, which solves the problem of shooting through another piece of glass that won't do you any image quality favors. That said, I didn't find the adapter's lens to be all that bad, to be honest, and it was a just a cheap $30 adapter. Click to go to a post I made a while back that shows a bunch of shots made with the lens in place in it here:

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/...-shot-500mm-f-4-5-l-fd-mount.html#post2673039

There's a guy named Ed Mika that makes FD to EOS adapters that are much better than the cheap $30 ones talked about above. I got one and really love it. They are glassless, but the adapter is made so that the fit between body and lens is so thin that you can get MUCH closer to infinity focus without a piece of glass in it and, frankly, I don't need or want to focus out to infinity very often at all anyway, and I suspect that's true for most people.

For those who want to go all the way to infinity, there are ways to modify most lenses slightly, though such operations are not for the squeamish. Or, you can temporarily use one of the cheaper glass-lens filters for the infinity shots.

While you lose auto-focus with all FD to EOS adapters, Ed Mika's adapter includes a chip that communicates between lens and body to at least enable the focus system to light up and beep when focus is achieved manually, letting you know you got it, which is a big help if you're not using an aftermarket ground-glass or split-image or prism type focusing screen.

This information might be more or less relevant depending on which lenses you have and want to adapt, so keep that in mind. I'm only speaking from experiences with my 500mm f/4.5 FD mount.

 

[jake337]

Buy some film for that AE-1 and have some fun!

 

[NeverTooOld]

Thanks for the quick replies, Gang! Jake, I love my old AE-1, but it's almost as old as me & I'm determined to be at least acceptable with the new stuff...Besides, the film in my bag is as expired as the camera haha. Buckster, I am really impressed with the photos you shot....and jealous to boot. I think I realize that the quality of my old lenses probably doesn't justify a custom made adaptor....But I hope to get good enough to justify better lenses for the new camera. Big Mike, I'm going with curtain #1 for now. You all really know your equipment & I'm grateful for the advice & replies. Thanks!!!