petergarafalo

Hey Folks!

Thought I'd share this video I made about converting your Canon FD lenses to EOS using the EdMika adapter. More to come...

Hope you enjoy!

Thanks for the reviews. Can you post a picture of the lens with the Edmika adapter?

Here’s a few. I bought it already converted with a dandelion chip, but it broke off and I didn’t want to reattach it.

You mentioned you used these as your test cameras: "Shot on a Canon t4i and Canon C300 (for video)"

 

The t4i has Canon's 1.6x crop body sized sensor and the C300's is only slight larger at 24.6 x 13.8 mm. Either way, they are not full frame by any stretch. So any reference to "corner sharpness" in your tests must bear in mind that your cameras aren't even approaching the corners that these lenses are covering. You must use a full frame camera to evaluate any of these lenses corners.

 

Just sayin'

Very good observation. I could not agree more. With crop sensors you barely feel any of the character of the lens. I hope to test this again along with some new purchases on an A7s soon!

Now try that with a 50mm 1.2L nFD

I intend to!

I just pricked up a nFD 50mm f/1.2L that I will be modifying to EF with the EdMika kit and testing on an A7s.

Hey all!

I'm new to photo.net, am just getting into vintage lenses, and bought my first Canon FD lens!

Below is a test of a Canon nFD 50mm f/1.2 i got on eBay with a preinstalled Edmika EF mount for $375. I mainly shoot video on EOS cameras and am interested in getting a set of Canon FD's.

I have learned a lot about the Canon FD system from these forums on photo.net, so I hope you all can get something out of these lens tests I conducted!

I did a series of tests comparing the Canon nFD 50mm f/1.2 (with Edmika EF conversion) against:

-Canon EF 50mm 1.4 USM

-Canon nFD 50mm 1.8 (with Vello FD-EF adapter)

-Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L USM (@50mm)

-Canon 24-105mm f/4L IS USM (@50mm)

-Canon nFD 35-105 f/3.5 Macro (with Vello FD-EF adapter)

testing center sharpness, bokeh and edge sharpness

Shot on a Canon t4i and Canon C300 (for video)

Full resolution stills can be found here:

Flickr: Canon FD 50mm f/1.2 Lens Tests

Youtube (video shot at f/1.2 on a C300):

Results:

While I was impressed with the vintage Canon FD glass overall, it definitely has its imperfections, as expected with any vintage glass.

Sharpness: As you can see, the sharpness of the modern Canon EF lenses is clearly superior to the Canon FD glass (proper conversion or cheap adapter). The Canon L series performed the best, but even cheaper modern canon glass like the EF 50mm 1.4 does a better job of retaining sharpness. This softness is expected and may be the “milky” look most enjoy from vintage glass, but it was a little concerning considering the EF 50mm 1.4 is a notoriously soft lens already. What was surprising to me, however, was that at f/2.8, the Canon FD seems to be the sharpest of the bunch in the corners…I would expect the complete opposite. Maybe my tests were flawed in some way?

[Check my Flickr collection for full high-res images: Canon FD 50mm f/1.2 Lens Tests]

Vignetting: As expected, the Canon L series glass performed the best in terms of vignetting, but in the FD's defense that can be cleaned up a bit in post and is part of the character I like from the lens. Take a look at the bottom right of each image (top: Canon FD 50mm 1.2, bottom: Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L

Chromatic Aberrations: best visualized from the exterior building shots. In these photos you can see that wide open, the FD 50mm 1.2 has some serious purple fringing in the highlights. So does the EF 50mm 1.4 for that matter. In both cases, this fringing is eliminated at 2.8, but compared to the L series, this is very noticeable. Maybe this is less of a modern construction/coating difference and more of the optics of fast canon lenses? I noticed while focusing that there is also a red/green shift on either side of near/far focus in the highlights. This is best shown in the keyboard sample photo. I noticed this more in the Canon FDs, but while pixel peeping I observed this phenomenon with all my canon glass.

Bokeh: if you want giant, beautiful, blooming bokeh, then a 1.2 lens easily takes the cake. The bokeh on the EF 50mm 1.4 and EF 24-70 2.8 was nice, but this is where that extra 1/2 stop makes a difference. However, when stopping down I much prefer the 8 bladed aperture of the 24-70 to the 6 bladed hexagons of the 50mm lenses.

Final thoughts: While sharpness was slightly disappointing when put under a microscope, I didn’t notice it while recording video in 1080p. I consider the softness part of the character of the lens and part of that "vintage" look. This could be flattering for example when resolving skin tones on digital sensors. The other “imperfections” were negligible or expected as part of the vintage lens character. However, the chromatic aberrations and specifically color fringing wide open is very concerning and might limit me from using the lens wide open in certain high contrast situations. This lens is still stops faster than my current go to f/2.8 lens line up. Moreover, most of these imperfections are eliminated by stoping down to f/2.8. But it disappointing not being able to use your new lens to it’s fullest potential.

In conclusion, this lens is an incredible value and check all my boxes. It’s fast, cheap, compact, ergonomic, and has tons of character. I love using this lens while shooting video and am loving all of what I'm seeing in the monitor (and 90% of what I see blown up in the edit). There are certainly better performing vintage lenses on the market, but if you're thinking about investing in the Canon FD system as part of a vintage lens set (as I am), you better be prepared to take the bad with the good.

- Peter

I hesitate to put more cat photos on the internet, but...

Taken with the Canon nFD 35-105 f/3.5 on a T4i with the Vello FD-EOS adapter.

(Ungraded JPEG from camera)