dslr lens question

kindguy

Big newbie here. I have the following older lenses

Canon FD 135mm 1:3.5 SC
Canon FD 85mm 1:1.8 SSC

Will these work with a canon dslr?

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks
Jeff

jrmyrnsm

Well the lenses you mentioned will not work on any DSLR because they all use the more recent EF mount and you cannot use FD lenses without an adapter. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news...

kindguy

jrmyrnsm wrote:

Well the lenses you mentioned will not work on any DSLR because they all use the more recent EF mount and you cannot use FD lenses without an adapter. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news...

Thank you sir. Thought is was worth a shot.

Jeff

ziggy53

Kindguy, welcome to the Digital Grin.

Yep, what "jrmyrnsm" is pretty much true. You can still get an adapter but it includes a weak, and low quality, teleconverter element so you lose a stop as well.

The other problem is focus. Modern dSLRs only have a ground glass for the viewfinder. You can get replacement screens for some models that help, but it's still difficult. I use a viewfinder magnifier and it works, but it's not suitable for most of what I want to shoot.

The Canon 40D does have a "Live View" mode and that works probably best of all in that you can zoom in on an area, manually focus and then shoot. Great for critical focus in a static situation.

It's too bad because I'll bet the FD 85mm 1:1.8 SSC is a very sharp optic.

FWIW, I keep an "AE-1 Program" body operational just to support some of the old glass.