Ok. So, I'll keep this brief. I was considering buying an old school FD (canon) mount lens. The question is: is it worth it? I really have no idea what the difference in image quality would be. Also, how do adapters impact the effective zoom?
Looking for opinions from any and all. :) Anyone with experience dealing with manual lenses in the past or present.
Unles your FD to EOS adapter has a corrective lens in it, you will not be able to focus to infinity. Learned that lesson the hard way. The corrective lens will degrade the image, from the original capability of your FD lens. Additionally, unless you buy a chipped adapter, you will not have focus confirmation on your EOS camera. I bought an adapter for my EOS cameras to use with my old FD lenses from my Canon A1. It sits unused around here someplace. I have picked up some M42 primes, that I use with an adapter. They will focus to infinity without a corrective lens.
Don't even consider an FD lens with the "optical" adapters. They do affect the effective focal length, and they degrade image quality substantially. Not worth the trouble.
As others have posted, there are plenty of older lenses that work beautifully on Canon with mechanical adapters. The only thing to be careful of is that some lenses can interfere with mirror action; this is only a problem with full frame cameras though so it does not affect you now.
Some lens mounts that are easily adapted:
- Nikon
- M42
- Exakta (though the adapter is very thin and can in some cases affect infinity focus)
and others. Lenses in the above mounts are usually pretty economical.
...So with the other lenses you all mentioned, is there a noticeable decrease in quality?
[Thank you all by the way, this is very helpful. :)]
Lenses that are used with mechanical-only adapters (no glass in adapter) will perform as they did on their original system. Some of the old lenses are quite good, even by today's standards. You do need to do some digging to figure out which ones are the gems, and which are the stones.
Lenses that are used with mechanical-only adapters (no glass in adapter) will perform as they did on their original system. Some of the old lenses are quite good, even by today's standards. You do need to do some digging to figure out which ones are the gems, and which are the stones.
You're absolutely right. Good think I'm not the type of person to spontaneously buy things. :D
I was looking at the no glass adapters. It seems only logical to me you wouldn't want another smudgy piece of glass in front of your sensor. :)
