FD lens with an adapter for my 10 year old? Any image quality comparisons?

[jdramirez]

So I was done building my own kit of lenses and body... so I went nuts and bought my 10 year old an Xti and a 18-55. But I wasn't done... I upgraded her xti to a Sl1 (and it is also my backup if my 5D mkiii fails) and I picked up a 28-135 (because I didn't like her casual attitude with my 24-105).

But I'm not a big fan of the 28-135... I don't like zooms with variable apertures and also the depth of field achieved with the lens. I'd lean towards a prime, but the 50mm f/1.8 is too toy like, the 50 f/1.4 is a touch costly for a 10 year old and the AF is a touch fragile... so I don't want to do that...

She tends to only manually focus... which I think is awesome... so I could maybe consider a used Sigma 50mm f/1.4... but I would want to use it every now and I'm an AF user... and I have heard that some Sigmas are beyond the 20 +/- AFMA units... and I would HATE eventually selling the lens to anyone and NOT tell them that the AF margin is so off. Yes I could send it to Sigma... but I'm not excited about that either.

So here's my question and point of the post... I've heard that old FD lenses can still provide remarkable results and can be had for a song and used with an adapter.

So I throw down $10 for an adapter and $20 for a 50mm F1.8 FD... but I can't find a website that compare the image quality of the lens to the current generation of lenses.

Normally I'd use a comparison tool like this:

http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/ISO-12233-Sample-Crops.aspx?Lens=105&Camera=453&Sample=0&FLI=0&API=0&LensComp=115&CameraComp=453&SampleComp=0&FLIComp=0&APIComp=2

but they don't have the FD lenses to compare.

So is the FD 50mm lens with an adapter worth the $30? Is the image quality going to be on par with at least the 50mm f/1.8 mkii?

Is there another cheap FD lens option with comparable performance of today's lenses?

 

[dgatwood]

If you're going with a manual lens anyway, it might be worth considering some of the M42 lenses as well, like the Helios M44-4 (58mm), or even the original M44 so long as you're using a crop so you don't have to worry about the mirror hanging at infinity. I personally think that its bokeh is particularly nice for portrait work, and a lot less boring looking than what I've seen from Canon's 50mm FD f/1.8.

For comparison:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/helios44/
http://www.flickr.com/groups/canonfd50mm/

With that said, I've only personally used it on a full-frame body, so it will behave a bit differently on a crop.

 

[msowsun]

So here's my question and point of the post... I've heard that old FD lenses can still provide remarkable results and can be had for a song and used with an adapter.

This is only true if you use a "Glass-less" adapter. In order to go glass-less you need to physically change the FD mount in order to move the lens closer to EOS camera body. With other DSLR brands and all "mirror-less" cameras, this is not a problem and you don't need optics in the adapter.

Here is a good read explaining why it is difficult to use Canon FD lenses on EOS bodies: (scroll down to "Canon EOS Lens Adapters") http://www.bobatkins.com/photography/eosfaq/manual_focus_EOS.html

Here is a direct comparison of an FD lens (with optical adapter) and an EF lens. http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=1028174

FD lens at f/1.4

EF lens at f/1.8

 

[jdramirez]

Thanks for the help. I'll dig in to it later tonight..