846Studios

Has anyone had any experience using a mount adapter to go between FD and EF mounts. There are a lot of FD lenses out there at a very reasonable price and some are really great lenses. I have a Canon T2i and even though many FD lenses would end up being manual focus with no IS support and probably several readings would be off, it really comes down to your eye. I'm convinced that if you know what you are doing as a Photographer most of these things wouldn't be an issue. The question is, who makes a good adapter, with a good optical element that wouldn't make the whole idea not worth the time, trouble, or cost? I'd appreciate any input on this from personal experience.

JimH Loc: Western South Jersey, USA

Many Canon shooters still use FD lenses on their EOS bodies. There are adapters aplenty. The adapter adds a layer of glass because of the focusing differences, but a GOOD adapter should not detract that much from the light. Depending on the lens/adapter/body combination, you do lose AF and aperture info.

I have a couple of old FD lenses that I'm still playing with.

Another option, if you're looking to purchase lenses, and don't just have a trunk full of old FD glass laying around, are good quality Asahi Pentax Takumar lenses from the 1960s-early 1980s. I have three of them and they work well, especially because the adapter is just metal, no glass in between. Completely manual, but they do well, and can be had for good prices. The Super Takumars from the 70s are built like tanks.

I'm sure quality Nikkor and Zeiss lenses are also use, but I have no personal experience with them.

Color sample, Takumar 135mm

846Studios

Thanks for the input Jim. I hadn't really considered lenses from other manufacturers, but now I will. Nice image BTW.

gessman Loc: Colorado

I have had 3 or 4 adapters for eos to fd. All of them have caused distortion and magnified my images beyond what they should have. I hear that the only adapter that doesn't do that is one that Canon made, no respect to JimH, and they're rare and expensive. I've been looking off and on for about 3 years and haven't found one yet. Haven't looked in a while. As JimH said, m42, Nikon, others are metal rings and while you lose focus to infinity, they work well. I have several Nikon lens I use with my 5D MkII and they work well, macro, portrait, etc. I've got some "L" glass equivalent FD glass I'm wanting to use and cannot because of the distortion of the adapters I've tried. Using that glass with the adapters I've had on a 1.6 sensor blows it out so bad that it isn't usable IMHO.

846Studios

Thanks for your input on this. From the things that I've read, it's not about whether they work or not, it's about whether they work well as you said. I'm probably going to look into some of the other lens alternatives and forget about the FD venture altogether. Thanks again!

JimH Loc: Western South Jersey, USA

Yeah, Gessie is correct - I forgot that the original Canon-brand FD-to-EF adapter, long out of production, is highly prized. I guess the key is to find lenses that can use a glass-less adapter, and whose original quality was good to start with.