Canon 50mm FD on Nex 5N

[paulpp]

Bought a 50mm f/1.8 and had an interesting time with it yesterday. Firstly I could not get the focussing to move up to infinity - stuck at about half way each time, but not when not attached to the camera. Eventually it worked and I am still not sure what I did differently to get it to work.
But at f/1.8 and f/2 found when focusing in the middle distance virtually everything was showing in focus peaking especially to infinity.
More practice needed I guess.

 

[rogue_designer]

Is the lens actually opening to 1.8/2 - depending on the mount adapter you are using, it may still be stopped down.

 

[paulpp]

Good point but have the basic adapter where I have to set the aperture manually. I notice inside th adapter there is a pin which engages with one of the lugs on the lens - not sure of the purpose.

 

[OlliL]

I'd question if you mounted the lens correctly.
The FD adaption is a little more complicated.

First you turn the ring on the adapter counter clockwise.
On the lens, when looking from the back, you tourn that ring clockwise.
Now put the lens on the adapter.
First turn the ring on the lens (clockwise when looking from the front, adapter away from you) and after that, turn the ring on the adapter the same direction.
Inside of the adapter should be a screw, or pin that pushes the pin on the back of the lens.

 

[kuzano]

Dry shooting no good w//fd mount canon

Dry shooting no good w//fd mount canon

Every time I sell a Canon FD mount lens... the buyer contacts me and say's "hey, I can't move the aperture" or "Why can't I do this, or that"...I tell them "If you don't have a manual focus Canon body, get one and test the lens. It's amost impossible to test functions on a Canon FD lens, unless it's mounted to a Canon FD body."

Canon made a few different mounts on the same breechlock as the FD. The FL mounts used essentially the same physical tabs, but different interlocks. Also, on the FD mounts there was a ring externally that locked the lens in place, while other FD mounts had only internal mating to the FD on the camera.

So, you should be very careful about the adaptors you buy.

Furthermore, you need three hands and helper and a large paper clip and the knowledge on where to stick it to make certain items move inside the lens.

The best way to know if you have a working FD canon lens is to also have a Canon camera which to mount it to and shoot, checking shutter speeds and apertures with the back of the camera open.

Once you have that in hand, move on to getting the proper adaptor.

Canon was extremely untrue to any continuity in lens mounts, before AF and EOS.

HUGE PITA,... if the glass was just worth the trouble.

 

[paulpp]

Thanks all - have tried the Oliver way and seems ok - hadn't realised it was so complicated!
Any suggestions as to a good make of adapter without spending silly money?

 

[rogue_designer]

I've used the fotodiox FD->Nex mount with both my breach lock 24/2.8 and new style FD 17/4 just fine.

 

[rxmd]

Canon was extremely untrue to any continuity in lens mounts, before AF and EOS.

HUGE PITA,... if the glass was just worth the trouble.

Actually it's not that bad. You can get a camera with FD mount for testing for like $10, and if all you want is to check whether the aperture is moving, a $2 extension ring will do the job... The breech-lock vs. twist-lock FD variants are basically two different realizations of the same thing, and the FD mount is backwards-compatible with the earlier R and FL mounts (...but there aren't that many interesting R and FL lenses to begin with).

From what I see, the one point where they really broke compatibility was the move to autofocus. And that has been discussed to death, with everybody expressing their own preferences about clean-but-incompatible breaks (Minolta, Canon, Contax/Yashica) vs. compatibility-but-not-quite (Nikon, Olympus).