Canon FD -> Sony Alpha?

<p>Is it possible to convert Canon FD lenses to the Sony Alpha mount? In-camera image stabilization would bring new life to the old supertelephoto lenses, especially if it can be done without adding glass or losing infinity focus.</p>

<p>Canon FD register distance = 42mm. Sony Alpha register distance = 44.5mm. </p>

<p>This means Canon FD glass will not make infinity focus on a Sony Alpha camera, unless the adapter has a weak optical element. </p>

<p>Having said that, suppose you could make a glassless FD to Sony adapter 5mm thick. That would give a total of 7.5mm extension from infinity focus. If you put this on a 400/4.5 telephoto, you could focus to 22 meters away, or closer. Of course, you'd have to operate the aperture manually and use stopped-down metering, but this might work for many purposes. </p>

<p> </p>

<p>Don't the supertelephotos focus a little past infinity?</p>

<p>My first impression is that it might be possible but Sony Alpha cameras will have to become extremely popular before anyone will spend their time on it.</p>

<p>There is a mechanical adapter now available for mounting supertele FD lenses on EOS bodies but the infinity stop must be removed from the lens as well. Google edmika. </p>

<p>There is another Canadian doing complete mount conversions, of most/any, Canon FD lenses to EOS.</p>

<p>The cheapest alternative at the moment is to use any FD lens with a mechanical adapter on the Sony Nex cameras. This is very intriguing considering the 24 MP Nex 7 with it's 1.5 crop.</p>

<p>If I had the money I'd be re-investing in FD glass now, since digital alternatives for using FD glass are finally coming to fruition, and prices are bound to go up. I gave up on FD about 6 years ago. Now I'd love to buy at least two and possibly up to four FD lenses. </p>

<p>Hi!<br>

I use FD glass on a digital Olympus PEN EP-2<br>

I bought a glassless adapter for 30 dolllars.<br>

I shoot the 85mm f/1/2, the 24mm f/1.4, a 50mm f/1.4, a 35mm f/2, a 105 mm macro and the 200mm f/4 macro.<br>

The result is extremely good, to say the least.<br>

The PEN is 12 megapixels, i get 12 by 18 inch prints, I crop to 50% of the total image area, and the prints are just perfect: tack sharp, vibrant color, no grain or noise. <br>

The crop factor is 2.<br>

Bye,</p>

<p>Dirk. </p>

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<p>When the Sony A100 came out I bought 2 adapters (they have glass in them) by Bower. They/it "worked" but infinity focus was not possible. I also had to adapt the adapters as the proper slot depth for the fork sticking out the back of an FD lens was not correct. I have not seen these adapters for sale on e-bay in a long while. Good luck.</p>

<p>I can't speak to the Alpha mount, but I've been using FD lenses on the NEX-5 for the better part of a year now. The results have been great. I can't wait to try out the NEX-7, a viewfinder will really help out in full daylight situations...regardless of lens choice. I'm really glad that I held on to all of that FD equipment now!</p>

<p>I can't say the Alpha mount would be a good place to adapt an FD Lens to ether, but I agree about the NEX-7 with you Paul Maslanka. I am currently a m4/3 user and prior to that all my SLR equipment was only manual focus Minolta and Canon. So So when the m4/3 system and G1 was introduce it finally made sense to switch over. With the focus assist on the G1 It was a pleasure to use all my legacy glass on it. And it still is. I never got use to using auto focus lenses and i am still not having never bought any AF lenses and just the Body of the G1. My only wish was that either Olympus or Pana would put the VF over in the corner so my big nose would be more comfortable went composing behind the camera and that the FPS would be faster than 1FPS. I have kept my eye on the other micro interchangeable lens camera systems and until i seen the NEX-7 preview i was not impressed. Now I'm really almost drooling since they added the corner EVF and its got the the focus peaking, focus assist thing that i been reading about; and it would be a bigger sensor for me to move to. The only thing that will keep me from ever getting it when it is released is the price tho. I will probably end up waiting 2 or 3 years till i find a used one for a 3rd of the introductory price. But man if they had included In body Image Stabilization on that thing, i would have taken out a loan and gotten it right away. Till then The G1 is a great digital camera body to Use that nice Fast FD glass on.<br>

Anyway its a brave new world. Lots of choices out there for the Canon FD glass to be used on now in the digital world, and the used market is reflecting that trend. Where once MD and FD glass sold for peanuts , now they are fetching a premium.</p>

 

<p>The Sony NEX series, with that 18mm lens register, seems to be more suited to the use of FD lenses. And sooner or later, there's bound to be a full-frame NEX. That will be the answer to FD lens owners' wishes.</p>

<p>I got a Fotodiox FD adapter - it's a a piece of glass inside ... haven't played around with it much ... someone gave me a free Canon FD 50mm macro lens and I tried it for macro shots, don't think I can focus to infinity even with that piece of glass in the adapter though.</p>

<p>Here's a <a href="http://www.dyxum.com/dforum/nikon-mount-lenses-on-sony_topic50866_page4.html">link</a> where a friend of mine briefly discusses FD to alpha mount conversions, he's tried a few shorter lenses for practice before converting an FD 500 L f4.5 to sony mount. With the shorter lenses he told me it wasn't too difficult to replace original FD mounts in such a manner that the process was still reversible, but with nFD mounts it was a lot more tricky. During the 500 L conversion process he ran into various unexpected and differently placed bits and pieces that had to be dremeled out, resulting in an irreversible process. He's been getting <a href="http://www.dyxum.com/dforum/cranes-in-the-paynes-prairie-preserve_topic54941_post604628.html">great results</a> with it, but did tell me afterwards that he probably wouldn't have attempted the conversion if he'd known beforehand how different the internals were from shorter FD lenses.</p>

<p>Another factor that's changed people's motivations for trying this kind of experiment with fluorite or L glass FD teles longer than 300mm, was Sony's release just two years ago of the amazingly sharp 70-400G SSM for a relatively affordable $1500 new (eg my friend pretty much stopped using his converted 500 L after getting a 70-400G). Before that particular lens came out quite a few Sony shooters were frustrated by the shortage of long teles in the Sony system, so for some people it made more financial sense to experiment with manual focus teles in other mounts that cost $1000ish at most, rather than forking out $2000+ for one of the scarce used Minolta AF 400 f4.5 apos or $5000+ for a truly rare Minolta AF 600 f4.</p>

<p>I sort of went a parallel route by starting out with an adapted FD 300 f2.8 fluo and an nFD 400 f4.5 on my Sony a100 and a700, though I didn't attempt any mount conversions and instead bought several of the Bower adapters Steve mentioned, including one traded with my adventurous friend after he had removed the glass element from the adapter and used it with the 500 L prior to performing the mount surgery.</p>

<p>Like Steve writes these Bower adapters are not very precisely machined and may require additional drilling or dremeling to correctly catch the aperture stop-down lever and/or to fit the lens mount precisely enough to allow you to fully lock the FD mount's chrome ring or the nFD rotating-barrel mechanism. The four Bower specimens I have all behave differently in terms of exactly which FD or nFD lenses they will fit to securely, so I tend to use each adapter with only one of its particular best-fitting FD lenses most of the time. On the one hand this may all sound like a hassle, but on the other hand these Bower adapters were only about $40 a piece when they were still easy to find, so not too bad at all for manual use with long teles or macro lenses in FD mount (especially if you remove the glass element, since lack of infinity focus doesn't really matter all that much anyway with macros or long teles).</p>