fd to ef adapters

[naptime]

i have been looking at a few different adapters on eBay tonight. it looks like an older style FD canon lens can easily be fitted with an adapter to be used on an EF mount eos film camera.

they all seem to be in the $30.00 range..

being that my daughter and i are beginners, will these adapters create significant degradation?

i ask because we both have kit lenses for our rebels. she has a 35-80 f4-5.6 and i have a 28-80 f4-5.6 we have a shared quantaray 70-300 f4-5.6 as well.


but today, my aunt told me that we were welcome to have ALL of her lenses from when she used to shoot. she used a canon as well. she lost her camera about 10 years ago over the side of a cruise ship outside Belize. but she still has all her lenses.

she told me we were welcome to have all of them, if we can use them and if we WILL use them. ie; no selling. lol.


she does not remember what they are, except that they are all canon brand lenses. some are very expensive, ($500 back in the 80s) and some are very cheap. she knows that some have very low f stops and some are a bit higher. some are wide angle, some are telephoto. etc...

but she cant remember what type of mount they are as it's been so many years since she even thought about them.

but, from i looked up on Google... i'm guessing they are fd mount.

she took her first photography classes around 85. and that's when she bought her camera as well. she said she only ever had one body, and all her lenses were for that body. from what i can tell, the EF mount wasn't introduced until so I'm guessing that her lenses are FD mount. (i'll know for sure on Christmas day, as we'll be there at her house)


so, assuming i am correct.... given that they are probably not the correct mount, would it be worth it to buy an adapter to use these lenses? figuring that most of her lenses will probably be better than the lenses we have.. but, i am guessing there will be degradation going through a cheap adapter?

or maybe there isn't and I'm completely wrong..

if you were a beginner, what would you do?

say thank, buy an adapter, and have the opportunity to experiment with lots of different lenses, but possibly at a suffered image..


or say thank but no thanks, these wont do me any good. ?????


thanks

 

[Buckster]

I'd say spend the $30 to get access to the old glass. There will always be some loss by going through yet another piece of glass, but chances are you won't even notice it. I have one and have used it with older lenses on occasion, and the degradation, such as it is, has not been a significant issue. Honestly, I don't even see it, though I know it must exist.

The bigger problem is that they'll be manual lenses, which means no autofocus and no stabilizer. That requires more care and more work on your end to use them effectively, especially on longer glass. On the other hand, that's probably a good thing for you and your daughter, based on what you've written about what it is you're looking to accomplish by going "old school" traditional on your introduction into the world of photography.

When you can shoot old glass on film cameras and do a good job with it, someday going to digital cameras with newer lenses that autofocus and reduce shake will be like going from a beat up Yugo to a brand new Jaguar.

 

[naptime]

thanks. that's how i felt. but wasn't sure if my line of thinking was correct. as i wasn't sure what to expect from a cheap adapter.

 

[w0M]

I spent the money, and after initial play havn't touched the lenses since. Image Quality was too low.

 

[belial]

From the articles I've read you will probably see a fairly significant quality loss. But I'd still do it for the chance to try out the various focal lengths and features. It'll help you both on what lenses you want later if nothing else and help you find your shooting style

 

[Big Mike]

There are two types of FD to EOS adapters, those with a lens element and those without.

An adapter without a lens element, is just a metal mounting ring. It won't hurt the image quality at all, because the light goes right from lens to camera. The problem with these, is that by necessity, they move the lens farther away from the camera, than it was designed to be. That means that you would loose the ability to focus at infinity (the farthest focus setting). So it would be good for close up type stuff, but useless for farther shooting.

So that's why other adapters have a lens element, it corrects for the lens spacing issue and allows you to focus to infinity (I think they also act as a mild teleconverter). But of course, the trade off for this convenience, is that the light has to pass through the lens in the adapter, and is thus subject to the quality of that lens.

And as mentioned, you won't have the automatic functions like auto focus or auto exposure.

 

[Buckster]

I'll shoot through one (with lens in it) tonight when I get home from work and post it.

 

[Big Mike]

I've been thinking of picking one up, I've got an FD 50mm F1.2 that I'm curious about.

 

[Dao]

Personally, I do not think I will get a FD to EF adapter unless I have a great FD lens. If I find a 200mm f/1.8 or a good telephoto prime at decent price, I will consider getting the adapter with optics.

If you want to use some older lens (manual focus), look for lens with other lens mount.

Take a look at the following link

Canon EOS lens Adapters - Manual focus lenses on Canon EOS bodies

Under "Flange to Focal Plane Distance", you will find a table, look for lens that has lens mount listed in the green zone and find an adapter for that instead.

 

[naptime]

There are two types of FD to EOS adapters, those with a lens element and those without.

thanks. the ones i have been looking at are WITH glass. that's why i thought maybe there would be some degradation if its only a 30 dollar adapter with glass.

but i figured those without glass would change the distance of the lens to the camera.. as you confirmed.

 

[naptime]

Personally, I do not think I will get a FD to EF adapter unless I have a great FD lens. If I find a 200mm f/1.8 or a good telephoto prime at decent price, I will consider getting the adapter with optics.

If you want to use some older lens (manual focus), look for lens with other lens mount.

Take a look at the following link

Canon EOS lens Adapters - Manual focus lenses on Canon EOS bodies

Under "Flange to Focal Plane Distance", you will find a table, look for lens that has lens mount listed in the green zone and find an adapter for that instead.

that's the point here. she has several great lenses and a few ok lenses. i wont know for sure until christmas day, exactly what she has, but she remembers that many of them were 500 plus in the 80's.. for 30 bucks, i open a lot of doors.

i would be spending a lot more to go out and look for lenses and then look for adapters for them.

my daughter and i are NEW.. our cameras are still in wrapping paper waiting for this weekend.

we don't NEED the lenses. and when we have them, we have a lot of learning ahead of us. so going out and buying lenses is not an option.. i want to save our money for two digital bodies.

but these are being offered to us, free of charge, if we can use them.

and if a $30 investment is worth it, then i will.



many thanks to everyone for all of your input. i'll report back after christmas when i find out what they are.

 

[naptime]

thanks for the link also Dao.. reading it now.

 

[Big Mike]

FYI

Back in about 1987-1988, when Canon first moved from manual focus cameras and FD lenses, to auto focus EOS cameras and EF lenses, they understandably angered quite a few photographers who were heavily invested in FD lenses. So Canon made a high quality adapter of their own. It was (apparently) never sold to the public, just to those who Canon wanted to appease.

Some of them have been floating around the used market since that time...and occasionally pop up on E-bay or wherever. They are, of course, quite expensive.

 

[naptime]

lol yeah, I read about those on Wikipedia. A grand for an adapter. Lol. I think I'll learn how to use the camera first !

 

[Buckster]

Okay, here are the test photos I promised.

This is a 500mm f/4.5 L FD on a 5DMKII using a $30 FD to EF adapter (with a lens in it). ISO 100, shutter 1/200th, f/4.5.

This first one is the photo with nothing applied other than a resize to 800 pixels on the longest side to fit here on the forum. There's no sharpening, noise reduction, contrast enhancement or anything like that. I pulled the RAW into Lightroom, exported it as is to a full size JPG, resized it to 800 Pixels wide, and here it is:

The link directly below this sentence is to the full size JPG, straight as it came out of Lightroom, with no adjustments made to it at all. It is 6.13 MB:

http://www.buckcash.com/images/artphotos3/IMG_0245.jpg

This next one is near the center of the shot, with the exact same applications - nothing, not even sharpening, just an 800 pixel wide crop to the full size JPG:

This next one is brightened and sharpened in LR as I might normally treat most any image, and output at 800 Pixels wide as a JPG:

The further out from the center you get, the more CA you'll find, but as long as you're composing in the camera rather than cropping images out of the corners after the fact, that shouldn't be a major issue, as you can see above. Using it on a crop sensor should reduce the problem even more for those that would be using a Rebel or 7D or something. Also, I have no way to know if the CA is from the lens itself or the adapter, or a combination of the two, but I don't think it's a show-stopper either way.

To me, this is worth a $30 adapter if you're on a budget and have access to some FD lenses. The degradation, such as it is, seems acceptable, to my eye.

YMMV