A few snaps with the Canon New f-1 with FD 24mm f/2.8 breech lens

I have been giving some thought to selling my Canon FD system and wanted to recheck the 24mm lens, there is some smutz on the inside of the lens, looks like something with the coating on an internal element. The lighting is cloudy-bright with occasional direct sun breaking thru. At the same time I am continuing my assessment of the Arista EDU 400 film. Conclusion: The lens passes muster, sharpness is very good and has low flare, it is a good user. The film, I'm not very happy with it, the grain is higher than I like and the highlights tend to block up too quickly. I have tried this film with Rodinal and the grain was much worse than what I expected. They are printed a little darker than what I normally print, the Ansco 130 is an older mix and I haven't used it in a long time and forgot how it reacts. Feel free to comment. RB

Very nice results!

A friend of mine had a 24mm Canon lens and a NEW F1 in the 1980s. I wish I were so lucky to have that nice of a lens and camera back then. I saw him in the 1990s and he sadly reported the camera and all his Canon lenses stolen form his car in NCY when he left his camera bag in the car.
Also sad because he never replaced them and went digital.

Huge Canon F1 fan. I just love always seeing detail - like reading the “15 Volts” under the headlight on the front of the train (pic 2). Lovely photos. It’s the lighting or development which cause the many lights/whites to generally blend together seemingly almost the same hue? Or assuming there isn’t a lot of white diversity present anyway? Not a criticism, I like to make images with same-so white or blacks for an extremely stark artistic image. Yours are nothing like what I describe, but the whites seem fairly even to my eyes. It promotes the subject matter.

I got one of those 'modern' 24/2.8 FD's for use on a T90. It's a decent lens alright. Not stellar, but I've seen (and used) much worse. Sharpness is...okay. Barrel distortion is for the most part surprisingly limited given the small size of the lens. Flare behavior is indeed quite good for a lens this age - not so stellar compared to modern lenses with contemporary coating technology. As with all wide angle lenses, diffraction becomes a real problem at f/11 and beyond unless you print small - which, fortunately, I do most of the time, so it doesn't bother me too much. Conversely, wide open, it can be a little soft and the corners never become quite sharp, but for a wide angle lens this size, it would be unrealistic to expect any different.

Overall it's a pretty useful compromise between weight/volume and image quality. Overall I enjoy using it - and perhaps should use it more often than I do!