Canon EF to FD adapter

[Avotius]

Has anyone ever tried one of these?

http://cgi.ebay.com/Canon-FD-Lens-t...yZ147173QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

I got a couple pieces of canon fd glass and I have always wanted to have a 35mm equivalent lens for my 20D and the canon 24 fd is a hell of a lot cheaper then the canon ef 24. I have a soft spot for lenses that can be switched from one system to another (one of the things that drew me to the leica M mount) so im hoping this might work out.

Things im wondering about:

There is an extra piece of glass in the adapter, does this effect image anyway, im guessing yes but hoping because of the 1.6 crop that it wont hurt too much.

Do these actually work?

Is this a stop down shooting set up? How does the camera know the max aperture of the lens to effectively meter on the camera? Any thing I should know about this?

Anything else that would be helpful.

 

[dazedgonebye]

I don't know anyone that's tried that particular adapter, but in general, I don't think those corrective adapters are very highly regarded. They have a reputation for bad image quality.
Manual focus lenses from many makers can easily be used on EOS cameras with adapters. The metering is old fashioned stop-down metering. You can shoot in aperture priority AE with little problem, though inaccuracies seem to creep in.
The camera doesn't know anything about what is attached, it just meters the available light and sets the shutter.
With all the great glass in Nikon, Pentax, CZ, M41, T-Mount, OM, and others I can't think of at the moment, I would not mess with FD lenses.

 

[harry01562]

I can't agree with "don't mess with FD glass". I'm not high on cheap adapters that incorporate glass, but the lenses can be some of the finest manual focus lenses ever made. They are usually cheaper than Nikon glass, and rival or surpass them, IMHO.
Discounting the phrases in the description than are plain marketing, it's not really possible to make any qualified statement, except that the glass WILL degrade the lens performance. It is necessary, in order that the lens focus at infinity, however. For quick snapshot things, it probably wouldn't matter. I wouldn't try doing a wedding depending on it, or even an important vacation.
For less than $40 you can play, and not have too much invested if it isn't all that you want/expect. Canon FD has the 24/2.8, a very nice 20/2.8, and, of course, several shorter focal lengths, as well. Many of them are very reasonable, because of the huge shift to digital, and the collapse of the SLR manual market.

Harry

 

[planetjoe]

Ah, Avotius - you're speaking of the holy grail of SLR photography. Just a quick perusal through the Canon FD forums at pnet might stir up your blood for searching for the long-lost Mythical Adapter. Check out this thread at pnet, and especially the Bob Atkins article it references.

...but alas, so far, there isn't one. There was once an adapter made by Canon (now going for ~$1000+ or so) for "pros" to switch their long expensive glass over to EF when the transition was made, but no "user"-level adapters ever came about.

As it turns out, the film-flange distance for FD bodies was so small, the need for corrective glass in an infinity-focus-enabled adapter leaves all that great FD glass out in the cold, optically speaking. And I've always been bitter, since I have a bunch of FD glass that I love. Ah, well; that's why I have a T90.

Actually, I've been using Pentax glass (m42 mount) on my Canon 10D, and I think that's a great marriage. The lenses are dirt-cheap, too.


Cheers,
--joe.

 

[dazedgonebye]

As long as you already have the FD glass, Harry's advice seems good.
You have little to lose.