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Explore the world of vintage lenses through repair notes, real test shots, and detailed archive threads packed with images.

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Canon FL 55/1.2 - is it the adapter?
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Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2011 9:22 am
Post subject: Canon FL 55/1.2 - is it the adapter?
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Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2011 9:22 am
Post subject: Canon FL 55/1.2 - is it the adapter?
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Took this lens out for a morning walk today. It is a very sexy looking lens and I am planning to convert to EOS mount from FD. This outing I was using a no-name optical adapter. Don't know whether it is the adapter, or the lens itself, but some serious exposure/focus/ghosting issues in the full set HERE plus some spoooooooky bokeh Shocked

The lens.....




Best of the shots.....









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Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2011 10:22 am
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Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2011 10:22 am
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the last 2, bokeh is unique. Perhap someone love it and someone doesn't.
I like for some case of effect


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Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2011 10:35 am
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Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2011 10:35 am
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Wow, looks like someones been on "the weed" again doesnt it?

Unique


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Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2011 10:46 am
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Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2011 10:46 am
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Looks good .. about the overexposure do you use focus confirm chip on the adapter? If you are and the f value reported by the chip is different than the real f stop on the lens you may need to correct the EV manually. The ghosting should be normal if you are shooting at f 1.2 in strong daylight.


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Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2011 12:21 pm
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Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2011 12:21 pm
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The cheap FD optical adapters are ALL junk.

You can't judge the quality of any lens when shooting through one of these adapters.


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Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2011 12:24 pm
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Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2011 12:24 pm
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Martyn - I don't think you'll see its real quality until you can abandon the optical adapter. Despite the frequent (and not unreasonable) assumption that the FD lenses were "better" than the FL ones, I still think the earlier ones have a distinct and different character, more akin to the late Canon rangefinder lenses. One of my many foolish photographic mistakes was selling my 100mm f3.5 FL not very long ago - a real little treasure of a lens. But not as foolish as selling the 50mm f1.4 rangefinder lens - Embarassed

Be nice to see your results when you get the conversion done.


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Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2011 12:33 pm
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Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2011 12:33 pm
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Martin
I'm interested in the original FD mount of this FL .. (if you remove it and you don't need it any more). Suat was very kind to relay the same lens to me but it has only a EOS adapter screwed in and i would like to get back the original mount.

BR,
Stefan


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Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2011 12:42 pm
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Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2011 12:42 pm
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Wow, what a cool bokeh.
Is it due to the FD-EOS adapter optical or its the character of the FL?


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Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2011 12:51 pm
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Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2011 12:51 pm
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I guess this is because of the adapter - i've got very pleasant rendering - especially from close distance.





Maybe this is the most busy i found



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Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2011 12:53 pm
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Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2011 12:53 pm
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std wrote:
Looks good .. about the overexposure do you use focus confirm chip on the adapter? If you are and the f value reported by the chip is different than the real f stop on the lens you may need to correct the EV manually. The ghosting should be normal if you are shooting at f 1.2 in strong daylight.


No focus confirm - just the "no-name" optical adapter. I normally shoot 1 stop under on my 5D in Av mode for all manual lenses but this time I decided to shoot 0ev. MISTAKE!

Interesting to hear that the "ghosting" is normal at f1.2 Smile


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Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2011 12:54 pm
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Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2011 12:54 pm
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std wrote:
I guess this is because of the adapter - i've got very pleasant rendering - especially from close distance.


Superb results! I am definitely encouraged to convert mine Smile


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Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2011 10:21 am
Post subject: Heresy!!!!
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Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2011 10:21 am
Post subject: Heresy!!!!
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Obviously not expert in converting lenses to EOS compatible, OK?

But...., could you convert to Nikon or M42 and then use a mechanical adapter?
The EOS lenses are very mount unfriendly. They will fit m4/3 and NEX but very few other types. Just saying and it might be easier? It will certainly be more marketable later?


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Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2011 10:24 am
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Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2011 10:24 am
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Of oourse it's fault of the optical adapter. They always degrade the quality of the image. No name ones, on top of that, are likely to use bottle-bottom glass.


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Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2011 2:57 pm
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Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2011 2:57 pm
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After just converting a Canon FL 2.5/35 of the same vintage (and very similar construction) my advice is to not bother as it's a very difficult and highly destructive conversion, you have to remove all of the aperture-body connection mechanism and cut back the lens body a hell of a lot to get infinity.

I can upload some pics of just how much butchery my lens needed to get to infinity, it took a lot of work...


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Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2011 3:59 pm
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Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2011 3:59 pm
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iangreenhalgh1 wrote:
After just converting a Canon FL 2.5/35 of the same vintage (and very similar construction) my advice is to not bother as it's a very difficult and highly destructive conversion, you have to remove all of the aperture-body connection mechanism and cut back the lens body a hell of a lot to get infinity.

I can upload some pics of just how much butchery my lens needed to get to infinity, it took a lot of work...


Please do - I'd be interested to see.


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Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2011 4:21 pm
Post subject: Re: Heresy!!!!
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Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2011 4:21 pm
Post subject: Re: Heresy!!!!
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pat donnelly wrote:
Obviously not expert in converting lenses to EOS compatible, OK?

But...., could you convert to Nikon or M42 and then use a mechanical adapter?
The EOS lenses are very mount unfriendly. They will fit m4/3 and NEX but very few other types. Just saying and it might be easier? It will certainly be more marketable later?


+1 To convert Nikon is better idea. If you need to sell it you can either sell to Nikon and EOS owners.


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Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2011 7:04 pm
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Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2011 7:04 pm
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Well, I can't actually get the four parts of the lens to screw back together, spent ages trying, no idea why...


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