Canon FD

I've got two questions regarding the Canon FD Mount.

Firstly, how feasible would it be to actually take the "mount" off of an old camera, and then attach it to another camera, and what would the focal plane differences be if this new camera was an EF based camera.

Secondly, has anyone got an old Canon FD camera that's so beat up and old that it's basically inoperable, and they wouldn't mind giving away?
It'd be gratefully received.

I'm hoping to create a canon EOS camera that can use FD lenses.

milkplus-mesto said:

I'm hoping to create a canon EOS camera that can use FD lenses.

Click to expand...

You and so many others...
It can be done, but you lose infinity focus. If you want infinity focus, you need the adapter with the optical element. Canon made one to entice L glass users over to EOS when it first came out, but it was mostly offered to pros, and not on the shelf of the local shop for John Q. Public to purchase. It wasn't cheap and cropped the image to a factor of 1.26x, if memory serves me correctly. If you don't want to spend a ransom, there is a cheap one on the evil auction site with a low quality glass element. It works, but don't expect great things from it. Knock out the glass and enjoy macro work.
The problem with adaptation is the film register, or to define it, the distance from film plane to lens. Have you ever noticed so many other manufacturers work with EOS, but not the other way around?
A quick search for lens register distance turns up this site:
http://www.markerink.org/WJM/HTML/mounts.htm

Hope this helps.

Thanks, i wasn't planning on adapting the lens, however. I'd thought about approaching it the other way. Cannibalising an old EOS film camera (1000F from that auction site for £2.71), and adding an FD mount to it at the correct register distance. Therefore having to effectively find 2mm within the camera body itself - which is pretty darned risky.

Curious why you would want to do this. You would lose most all of the advantages of the EOS system by using the FD lenses. There are some very fine FD lenses, including some sleepers, but why wouldn't you just use a good FD mount camera, as they are still very plentiful?

I agree with Jason. You can get some great Canon FD bodies for cheap that have automation, if thats what you want.

Markok765 said:

I agree with Jason. You can get some great Canon FD bodies for cheap that have automation, if thats what you want.

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I'm not saying not do do it, even if the sole reason is an homage to George Mallory. I'm just curious.

If you want an FD body with an EOS ethos, that's the T90.

Even if you could attach the mount and trim off 2 mm somewhere (assuming it you could do it precisely enough to maintain alignment) without the lens clipping the mirror, you would have to add a pin to engage the aperture lever and stop down the lens, and then use it in stopped down mode only. There aren't really many reasons to do this unless you want to convert one of those bodies that we don't talk about on APUG to FD. If you just want to use some exotic FD lens that would be absurdly expensive in EF mount, then it makes more sense to get an FD body just for your FD lenses.

Regarding the Canon FD-EOS adapter, there was a non-optical adapter called the "macro adapter," because it didn't allow infinity focus, so it only made sense to use with macro lenses, and there was an optical adapter that acted like a 1.2x tele-extender and had protruding elements, so it only works with lenses 200mm and longer that have enough space between the rear element and the mount to make room for the protruding elements. It didn't crop the image, because you still use the whole 35mm frame, but it enlarged the image, like a 1.4x extender or 2x extender.

Check this out:
http://www.ganymeta.org/~darren/photo_f1.2_conversion.php

cdholden said:

A quick search for lens register distance turns up this site:
http://www.markerink.org/WJM/HTML/mounts.htm

Hope this helps.

Click to expand...

Thank you,
Bobby

Is an adapter what you're needing, or did I miss something in all this?

http://cgi.ebay.com/Lens-Adapter-Ne...ryZ15215QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem



:confused:

Why not do something simple, get a T90, a Canon FD camera - Leica R lens adapter & use Leica lenses.
Go to: www.CameraQuest.com

" Stephen Gandy, sees all, tells all, sells all. "