Canon 35mm f/2 New FD

A 35mm f/2 Canon New Fd lens arrived from an eBay seller today. It is marked

U.S. NAVY. When I first saw the marking I expected the focusing ring to be

locked at infinity and the aperture ring to be locked at the automatic

setting. There is a small amount of play in the focusing ring but the lens

focuses through its entire range. The aperture ring also works through its

whole range. I put it on an F-1 to check the aperture mechanism, which looks

fine. Did someone work on this lens to restore the focusing and aperture rings

or did Canon make these lenses in more than one style for the Navy?

As far as I know the only locked lens in the Canon US Navy line up was the 100mm f/2.8, which was used for aerial photography with Canon T70 bodies. Your lens may have been used for ground work - see this link: http://cameraquest.com/cf1mil.htm

Jeff, I have the FDn 50/1.4 and 35/2.8 and both have working aperture and focus ring. The 100/2.8 I just picked up is locked on the A setting and infinity. So my guess is that these are unmodified off the shelf lenses branded US Navy, except for the 100 of course.

The Std Navy kit which came in a Halliburton suitcase. Had a 35mm 50mm 100mm 200mm and 600mm lens through the years there was some variation. The only one of these I have ever seen without the aperture ring and locked infinity focus was the 100mm f2.8 nFD

 

I currently have a F-1N US NAVY and my 200mm f2.8 is also a US NAVY I sold off the 35mm f2.8 and 50mm f1.4 I had.

 

At one time eBay was almost flooded with 600mm f4.5 nFD's from the Navy depot in Norfolk VA dumping a pallet of these kits in various stages of completeness

 

The only bodies I have ever seen with the US NAVY marking were F1n F1N and A-1. I have heard there were some T-70's I just haven't seen one.

 

All of these were contract purchased nothing was off the shelf. And all of the engraving was done by Canon in factory. Interestingly enough for some reason none of the maybe 20 different kits I've seen over the years has had a Canon made flash. The have all been Vivitar!

 

Oh the 100mm f2.8 was a factory mod sold under contract.

 

I've talked to a couple of guy who were Navy photographers and one guy who repaired cameras on board a Carrier in the later stages of Vietnam. And they told me that depending on the type of ship there would be from 1 to a half dozen of these Kits on board. And they were used by everyone from Public relations officers and staff to observers and shore patrol.

 

The 100mm f2.8's and the associated bodies were not part of the kits. And were as said used by Pilots to snap shots of what ever. The fixed focus and fixed aperture were to allow use with one hand. Since everything was far enough away to be at infinity and the F2.8 allowed the use of slower film for greater enlargement.

 

Or so I have been told.

 

Kind of wish I had had someone to kick up the 1/2 pallet of these kits I could have bid on about 4 -5 years ago. From what I could tell watching eBay some pawn shop in Norfolk won the bid and resold them mostly parted out on eBay.

 

OK that's what I know.

The Canon FD 100mm lenses were/are considered the most distortion-free optic in the Canon Line up. In addition to one-handed "point and shoot" grab shots from Navy pilots, airborne Photograpers' Mates would use these focus-locked optics in oblique terrestrial strip mapping projects where, if the focus was not identical frame-to-frame, the there would be trouble piecing together the composite photo map. Anyone interested in Navy aerial photographic techniques would do well to check out Chapter 4 of NAVEDTRA 14208 Photography-Advanced. Interesting reading. The basic Photographer's Mate course NAVEDTRA 14208 has also been a good instuctional tool for me when starting newbies off in photography. Both can be found in PDF form (very large) here: http://www.shopdawg.com/navman.htm Just scoll down the page to Photography basic and advanced..............Lou

Mark W., you'll see US Navy T70's from time to time on eBay. When were you in the Navy? I was ship's company onboard the USS Independence, CV-62 from 9/74-6/78 and one of my best friends was a PH2 and they used Nikon F bodies back then.

A little looseness in the focusing on the FDn 35 f2 seems nomal, from what I've heard, and from my own sample. It is reasonable to assume that the Navy, like the rest of the military, used these excellent lenses for journalistic, documentary, forensic and other applications. This is one of my favorite lenses, and a candidate for "shouldda been an L".