Its all in the lens!

[joe_nash1]

I just wanted to let all those that are new to Canon FD, alot has to

do with the lens we use. I have had a Canon AE-1P for about 20 yrs(

Grad present). The lens it came with, 50 mm f1.8, always took

wonderful pics. But my parents also bought me a 28mm f2.8 and a

80-200mm f4.5 made by Beston. Well these lens look like nice lens,

but whenever I took pictures, the wide angle was over exposed, and the

zoom was massively underexposed. This left me, especially as a young

man, bewildered. Well fast forward to the present, and with buying

some lens off the internet, I have acquired a sigma wideangle, and

Vivitar Series 1 28-90mm f2.8, and a Vivitar 28-200mm f3.5. All I can

say is wow! What a difference they make! Although the above named

lens aren't Canon FD, they still allow for some stunning photography.

So in short, don't allow a bad lens to ruin a great camera!<div></div>

[gnashings]

Although this sounds very extreme, there have been some third party dogs out there over the years. Conversly, there are many real gems with off-brand name tags that can save you a lot of money and give you a lot of joy. I would suggest that whenever you approach a third party lens you are not familiar with, have a look at forums such as this one and do some research - you will avoid all the bad apples and a lot of frustration! Still, I wonder how the lenses affected exposure so consistently? Did you ever figure it out? I'd love to hear the "CSI" report:)

[dirk_dom]

I have two really great third party lenses for FD:

 

A Sigma 14mm F3.5, which at F 22 is sharp from 4 inches from the front glass to infinity and is very contrasty and rich in colours.

 

A Vivitar Series 1 28 - 105 F 2.8. Very good lens which at the 28 mm setting focuses down to about half life size.

 

I have some 20 Canon FD lenses. I keep on buying them because they're are often cheap. My favourite amongst those is I think the 85mm F 1.2 L. It cost me about $ 500, but at F 1.2 the images are incredible!

 

Bye,

 

Dirk.

[david_thrower]

Hi Everyone,

 

A great point this one - the camera body only holds the film in place (OK and gives you exposures etc if you use the meter) but the lens does all the real work.

 

When I first bought into the FD system about 15 years ago I bought an A1 with 50mm 1.8 lens and a Super Travenar 80-200 lens. These were fine for me at the time but a few years ago I bought a chrome nose 50mm 1.4 and this lens made the 50mm 1.8 images look so soft by comparison. My 50mm 1.8 may have been a bad one but the difference was really noticable even on 7 x 5 prints. Also I bought a Canon 75-200 and that blew the Super Travenar away but not to such a great extent.

 

I now shoot full time and use a 5D and Kodak SLR/c with good quality EF lenses and I also use a Leica M6 but the good FD lenses still hold their own in my honest opinion.

 

Best regards

 

Dave Thrower

[doug_nelson1]

If you still have the negs for the under- and over-exposed shots, check 'em out. A thin, weak-looking neg didn't get enough light. Light builds density on neg film. This is commonly caused by wide-angles taking in so much sky that the meter freaks (especially a center-weighted averaging type like on the AE-series) and allows the aperture to close down too much. The photog has to see that situation coming and open up a stop or two. To look at the print, you'd assume its overexposed, as its too bright. If the negs are very dense, they were overexposed. Conversely, with slides, the intuitive approach works, ie., too bright means overexposed, as light burns away density with slide film. If you like Canon FD, there are bargains out there in truly excellent optics. Examples are the 24mm f2, 35mm f2, 28 f2 (and f2.8 SC), 100 f2, 135 f2 and 80-200 L zoom.

[pensacolaphoto]

Third party lenses can be excellent and sometimes even better than the Canon lenses. For example, the Tamron 90mm/2.5 macro lens is in my opinion surpassed by very few similar lenses. Another example is the Vivitar 90mm-180mm macro zoom lens. It is unique.