Superwide lenses for the Canon FD system?

[dnjl]

I recently found myself in a situation where my FD 24mm lens wasn't wide enough. Because I expect to do more shooting of that kind, I had a look around for superwide fullframe (no crop circle fisheye) lenses. Canon made 15mm and 17mm superwides, but they are rather expensive. I could get the 20mm f/2.8, but I'd prefer something even wider.
Are there any good third-party superwides available for the FD mount? Maximum aperture doesn't matter, I just need a sharp piece of glass for a good price.
What are your recommendations?

 

[frobozz]

My experience with the 3rd party wide stuff for Canon FD is: don't bother. The difference in image quality is simply not worth the cost savings. And Canon FD stuff is relatively cheap these days.

I'm not a big fan of the 17mm. That small max aperture is annoying, and to my eye the lens vignettes a bit. The 15mm is a great lens, if you can work with the barrel distortion. The 14mm is just downright weird in its effects, that lens is hard to use well (and is still really really expensive because it's so rare.) So yeah, the 20mm is a nice choice.

When I was testing all my lenses on one of those spinning ground glass video camera adapters I put together a big chart which might help you in your quest:

http://betlikeduncan.com/duncan/redrock/lenscharts/canon_fd/

Duncan

 

[Jesper]

You could try the Tokina 17mm.

 

[GumPhoto]

The 14mm Rokinon is very impressive. I have it for the Nikon, and I love it. Manual focus, but that has never made much difference with that DOF.

 

[Whiteymorange]

The Tamron 17mm is quite good.

 

[Jeff Kubach]

Go with the FD 17mm it might cost you a few extra bucks, but it is worth it in the wrong long!

Jeff

 

[hpulley]

I've used my 20mm f/2.8 FD a ton. I never thought I'd need to go wider but I have the 17-40 f/4 EF and do find the 17mm is nice there so maybe one day I'll get the FD version...

 

[benjiboy]

Go with the FD 17mm it might cost you a few extra bucks, but it is worth it in the wrong long!

Jeff

The FD 17mm lens Jeff is a semi-fisheye that produces curvo-linear perspective which is why I bought the FD 20mm f2.8 as an ultra wide lens in preferance , the Tamron SP is also a recto-linear lens that produces more conventional ultra wide angle images .

 

[hpulley]

The FD 17mm lens Jeff is a semi-fisheye that produces curvo-linear perspective which is why I bought the FD 20mm f2.8 as an ultra wide lens in preferance , the Tamron SP is also a recto-linear lens that produces more conventional ultra wide angle images .

Are you sure? I'm pretty sure the 17mm is a normal rectilinear super wide angle lens. That said, I never owned one myself, just the 20mm.

I believe you are thinking of the 15mm rectangular fisheye lens.

 

[frobozz]

Yeah, the 7.5mm is the circular fisheye. The 15mm is the biggest rectangular crop of a fisheye circle. And all the rest are rectilinear, even the smaller-focal-length 14mm and most certainly the 17mm. See the example shots in my chart above.

Duncan

 

[hpulley]

Cool lens collection, Duncan!

Yes, the f/4 max aperture made me avoid the FD 17mm f/4 for decades. I often used the 20mm f/2.8 hand held indoors at 800 EI where an extra stop down would have made the 17mm less useful.

But then I bought the 17-40mm f/4L in EF mount so go figure; I don't use it indoors handheld obviously though with 3200 EI it would probably work. The lens is a bit squishy in the corners until you stop it down a lot, vignetting too but I still like it and use it a lot on my EOS cameras. Great color and contrast and very sharp if stopped down.

I have a Peleng 8mm f/3.5 circular fisheye which I can use on FD or EF mount. It is fun but I don't use it much.

 

[dnjl]

I ended up buying the Tokina RMC 17mm 3.5 (Vivitar rebranded) on eBay. It's much cheaper than the FD 17mm f4, half a stop brighter and conveniently takes 62mm filters. It is reported to be a very good lens optically, I'll find out if that's true soon. Thanks for your suggestions everyone!

 

[Jeff Kubach]

The FD 17mm lens Jeff is a semi-fisheye that produces curvo-linear perspective which is why I bought the FD 20mm f2.8 as an ultra wide lens in preferance , the Tamron SP is also a recto-linear lens that produces more conventional ultra wide angle images .

Might be right but I do have the 15 fisheye!

Jeff