Canon New FD 400mm f/4.5

[cooltouch]

I bought this lens today -- it's a New FD Canon 400mm f/4.5 IF. Rather surprisingly light and compact for a 400mm, I think. It exhibits a fair amount of color fringing in high contrast situations when using my digital EOS, but I suspect it will be much better controlled when shooting film with it.



Yes, I wrote EOS. I have one of the much-maligned FD-EOS adapters with the corrective element. Most often I find myself using this adapter with the corrective glass element removed, which turns an FD lens into a close up lens only, but this is useful for shooting with my fast FD glass wide open and getting rather impressive shallow DOF images -- albeit with close ups only.

The FD-EOS adapter fails mostly when trying to use fast lenses at apertures greater than f/4 or so. When used under those conditions it exhibits a noticeable amount of flare. The faster the lens, the worse the flare. It gets so bad, that a lens like a 50mm f/1.4, when used wide open with the adapter has such a great amount of blooming flare that the image is almost totally degraded.



But this isn't a problem with this 400mm f/4.5 at all. Its wide open aperture is slow enough such that the adapter shows no flare, but it's also fast enough so that it still exhibits shallow DOF for interesting images with hopefully pleasing bokeh.

But what about image degradation in the resolution/sharpness department? Well, I've already determined to my satisfaction that the adapter I have does not degrade the resolution/sharpness of the images at all -- or at least by no observable amount.

What's more, the FD-EOS adapter acts as a mild teleconverter, about a 1.2x with a loss of about 1/3 stop of light as near as I can determine.

Now, what makes it really interesting using this lens with my 1.6x copy-body EOS DSLR is its crop factor increases the effective focal length from 400mm to 640mm. Then add the 1.2x magnification factor caused by the FD-EOS adapter, and the focal length gets bumped up to 768mm with an effective aperture of about f/5 or so. Call it 770mm . . . at f/5! Ever seen an 800mm f/5.6 super tele? They are monsters, and that's almost what I have here with my dinky little EOS DSLR. Kinda cool if you're into long telephoto stuff, like I oftem am.

I set the lens and DSLR atop a sturdy tripod and took aim at some freshly blooming shrubbery -- an azalea bush I believe it is, before the blooms begin.

The focusing ring turns so smoothly, thanks to the lens's internal focusing feature, but the focus is very touchy. All it took was the slightest touch to move the following image from sharply in focus to noticeably out of focus.

Here's a shot of the bush with the lens wide open at an indicated f/4.5:


And a 100% crop from the above image:


There's a bit of digital noise visible in the above photo. I was shooting at ISO 100 and my camera's internal sharpness is set to 5, but this often results in a bit of noise like what you can see. I didn't do any post processing to any of the images here.

If you've read through my telephoto lens tests in the past, then you know I have a favorite subject for testing my teles. It's a water dispensing kiosk in a parking lot at the end of the block where I live. The kiosk is about 400 meters away. I always focus on the small words on its sign. And I like shooting the sign at varying apertures. One of the side benefits of shooting this kiosk is the blades on the windmill are contrasty enough where they will usually show color fringing. It's there with this lens.

Wide open at an indicated f/4.5:


Indicated f/8:


Indicated f/11:


Indicated f/16:


I shot the kiosk at f/22 and f/32, but I don't see any point in posting those images. By f/22, softening of the image is very apparent, and by f/32, it's blurry.

As for the sentence, "We care about the water you drink" I have to say that this is probably one of the sharpest lenses I've tested yet. Yes, it does exhibit color fringing all the way through f/16, but this is not the deal-breaker today as much as it was in the past. It can easily be cleaned up in post processing nowadays.

I'll need to do a more thorough comparison between this lens and my other teles to make sure I'm recalling things correctly about this lens's relative sharpness, but my hunch is that I am.

So anyway, after this bit of testing, I'm pretty stoked with the results. I started running out of light today and saw only a couple of birds and one squirrel and none of them stayed still long enough for photos. So tomorrow I'll see if I can give the lens a better workout.

[Schnauzer]

It sure looks nice on that good looking F1. I'm very interested to see what you get with some Ektar or portra with the F1 and the new long glass.

[cooltouch]

I bought three rolls of Ektar today along with the lens, just for that reason. Gonna run the rolls through the F-1 and give the lens a workout.

[mo]

A Beautiful looking lens Michael...well worth it by the sounds of it....look forward to seeing the Film results.

[ZoneV]

Congratulation!
But I don´t like the contrast / glowing on the kiosk image. I think this is too much image degrading for a newFD lens.
How is the quality with the adapter without lens inside?

You know this lens focus with the Ed Mika FD-EF adapter to ~ 300 meter?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ontarian/5423687645/in/set-72157624929098837

[AhamB]

[cooltouch]

@AhamB
Sharpness at 3 is default for my EOS. I turned the sharpness down on the raw file all the way to 1 and it didn't entirely eliminate these effects.
I'll try playing around with the sharpness today. See if I can gain some back in pp, because I've never been happy with it set to 3 inside the camera.

Maybe I'm being naive about it, but the way I see it, Canon should design their DSLRs to handle sharpening properly, regardless of the setting dialed in. With my XS (1000D), I feel cheated, to be honest. To preserve as much detail with a minimum number of artifacts, I can't view an image at 100%, the most I can view it is at 80%. I find this annoying.

Oh well, enough on my EOS rant.

@ZoneV, well, that's one reason why I like using that kiosk as a subject -- because it does show contrast/CA issues. By f/11 I think the image is not bad. There's still a bit of softness at f/8.

I have taken this adapter and compared images using my Tamron 90mm macro. I used the macro with a Nikon mount and Nikon to EF adapter and shot some images with my EOS. Then I mounted a Canon FD mount to the Tamron, and then mounted that to my EOS using the FD-EOS adapter, and shot the same images again. Once the Tamron was stopped down past f/4, there was no more flare, and under close examination of the images, I could detect no noticeable difference in sharpness.

Now, it might be there's a bit more residual flare with this particular lens, but it sure didn't give that impression when looking through the viewfinder. I have other telephotos that have more flare and bloom wide open than this one does.

Thanks for the Ed Mika link. Sounds interesting, but ~300 meters for a minimum focusing distance is too much. Way too much. There's a fellow in Scotland, I believe, who I corresponded with a while back, who claims to be producing adapters that do not flare. His prices are similar to Ed Mika's. I asked him to send me links to photos that showed this level of performance he claimed, but the photos I saw did not really exploit the lenses as well as I felt they should have to emphasize his claims. Here's a link to one of his adapters:

Click here to see on Ebay

I just ran across this one, too, which looks interesting. Because of its slim design, the maximum focus distance has been extended quite a bt for some telephotos. 120 meters for this 400/4.5, which focuses well past infinity.

Click here to see on Ebay

[ZoneV]

[cooltouch]

[AhamB]

[cooltouch]

I use Canon's DPP for processing the raw images. I've also used PS's raw converter, LR's raw converterr, and Paint Sho Pro X2's raw converter. I just don't see much difference in the converted images. Maybe I should look a bit closer.

I convert the raw files to .tif. I don't convert to jpg except for the images I post on the internet, which are almost always resized, too.

I've used PS's Smart Sharpening, and I think it works pretty well. I'm so used to PSP X2, though, that I usually use it for my PP needs. Its "Sharpen More" command is very similar to PS's SS, I think. Plus, besides USM, it has High Pass sharpening, which I've found to be a very useful alternative to USM. PS doesn't have an HP filter built in, but there is an HP plug in available. However, it doesn't work as well as PSP's native HPS does.

[gaeger]

That 400mm is a really handsome lens!

[cooltouch]

[cooltouch]

[Ed Mika]

Thanks ZoneV for clarifying the differences between my brass EdMika 0.75mm EF-FD adapter and the 1mm china copy. Other than being a bit peeved about being copied, the adapter they made does not seem all that bad other than a few downsides I see. There is no good attachment place for an AF confirm reporting chip and the glue on plastic bases don't hold well in my experience especially to coated surfaces. Aluminum is easily bent based on my prototyping trials, one good hit and your lens can be falling to the floor. I've done destructive testing on brass using a broken EOS 650 and broken old FD soligor 70-210 lens and could not believe how much of a beating the brass assembly could take, the metal lens barrel deformed before my brass adapter did. Also, infinity focus is infinity focus, there is no substitute which is the major reason I see the value in my adapter for the 600mm and 800mm lenses. Nothing beats these for distance shooting like moon for similar prices except a few telescopes with limited terrestrial usages.

There is a downside to going to 0.75mm instead of 1mm though, a few FD lenses like the 24 f/2 have slightly longer aperture levers and they can scuff up the electronic contact bezel plastic on EF but not EF-S bodies. 1mm is safe but really hurts maximum focusing distance. I also don't think aluminum could handle a 0.75mm flange, it would bend by hand, in fact I know it does which is why I abandoned the idea of using cheaper and easier to machine aluminium.

[cooltouch]

[Ed Mika]

I need to make a chart with maximum focusing distances, perhaps I'll shoot a long tape measure I have to see which numbers I can get into focus, I've got the following FD lenses:

Canon FD 17mm f/4
Canon FD 20mm f/2.8
Canon FD 24mm f/2
Canon TS 35mm f/2.8 S.S.C.
Canon FD 50mm f/1.2
Canon FD 85mm f/1.2L
Canon FD 135mm f/2
Canon FD 200mm f/2.8
Series 1 70-210mm f/3.5 v1
Canon FD 85-300mm f/4.5
Canon FD 400mm f/4.5
Canon FD 800mm f/5.6 L

I generally use the sub 200mm focal lengths on my Sony NEX-5 (and really enjoy doing so) and the longer lenses on my 7D and 1D4. The 50 1.4 only focuses to about 1 meter so its not really practical. A good rough test is to hold your lens to your camera flange by hand to see the best you can expect and keep in mind that the FD lenses have the apertures stopped down quite a bit when not engaged to a body so your depth of field is greater than shooting normally and wide open. Also note that the adapter will push the lens back even 0.75mm farther which significantly hurts maximum focus distance. A long time ago I made a 0mm flange (completely internal holding mechanism http://www.flickr.com/photos/ontarian/4532366961/in/set-72157624929098837 but it only works on crop bodies because all FD lens aperture levers will dig into the plastic near the electrical contacts on 1.3 crop and full frame EF mount bodies.

[cooltouch]

[ZoneV]

[cooltouch]

It isn't a practical solution for me. I use my shorter FD lenses with my Canon F-1 and FTb. I don't want to have to dismantle the rear of my lenses every time I want to switch between EOS and FD.

I agree with you about a crop-body camera! That's why I wrote what I did about somebody finally coming out with an FF EVIL. It's bound to happen someday. I just wish they'd hurry up.

[cooltouch]

Yesterday I took the lens out with the intention of gathering more comparative images -- images shot with the corrective element in the FD-EOS adapter, and images shot without it. I'm still looking for a set of definitive images that show clearly the inferiority of the corrective element. Haven't had much luck at all so far.

We have a nice grouping of roses blooming right now. Roses are always photogenic, so I went with them, even though I'm getting pretty sick of taking pics of roses.

Here is the group, taken at a distance of about 10 meters. The corrective element was in place for this shot.



I moved a bit closer so I could fill more of the frame with the top bunch of roses. I focused on the stamens and pistils. When I did so, I discovered the rose was harboring a couple of bugs. Since they move around so much it's really hard getting precise focus on one of those critters. ISO was 100 and the lens was wide open at f/4.5.


Then I removed the corrective element and took more photos. ISO was 100 and the lens was wide open at f/4.5.


Note the slight difference in size between the two roses. The first is just a bit larger than the second. This is the telephoto effect caused by the FD-EOS adapter's corrective lens.

So, I loaded up the above images and examined them closely. I'm showing you only the best image from each group, with or without that element, that is. But when comparing all the images, there just wasn't any appreciable difference in sharpness when both groups were lumped together. So, I decided to load the gear up on my bike and go for a ride, see if I could find something interesting to take pics of and maybe I'd be able to determine this once and for all. Well, I could have done it at home too, but the weather was fantastic, and I was really jonesin' for a ride on my bike.

So, I'm cruising down a street a few miles from home and spot something out of the corner of my eye. Did a U-turn and went back to take a closer look. Sure enough, there was an egret perched atop the edge of a storage rental building. A snowy egret by the looks of it. So I park the bike and -- dang it! -- I totally forgot to bring a tripod or even a monopod. So much for any sorts of tests. Not much point doing them hand-held.

Well I was gonna take pics of that egret, hand-held or no. So, I crept up on it til I was about 50 meters away and started shooting. Kept creeping up to it, shooting as I was going. I could tell it was getting agitated by my presence, but a lot of times these birds will let you get very close before they'll take off. Other times, no. This one was a "no." He/she took to wing and flew off, down a bayou that was just behind this building.

Full-frame, this is about as close as I got with my 768mm effective focal length Canon:


Not so bad, I guess. Cropped, it holds detail reasonably well. I bumped ISO up to 200 and the lens was wide open at an indicated f/4.5.



Looks like I just missed precise focus with the first photo. Some mild camera-shake evident on the second photo. I did a fair amount of PP on the above images. Mostly curves and brigtness adjustments. All USM was doing was increasing noise, so I didn't bother.

But I had a couple other photos that were kinda interesting but required quite a bit more work. I had to adjust exposure, remove some purple fringing, bump up contrast, and did a fair amount of USM, then noise removal. Now what was really interesting about this was, with each step I took in the PP process, the background became more and more prominent. I had noticed this with one other photo I've taken -- with a very busy background, the OOF highlights take on a brushstroke quality. And these really showed this. As a result, even though the images of the bird are fairly ordinary, the background is unusual enough such that I call them keepers.




If I were better at Photoshop, I could no doubt improve that second image even more, but it will have to wait until I do.

So after the snowy egret deserted me, I hopped back on my bike and took off, just sort of wandering around. Spotted a large drainage canal that emptied out into a wide catch basin, probably 500 meters square if not more, that had become a large marsh. Now I know that whenever there is a large open marsh area like this, waterfowl are usually to be found. So I turned in, and began cruising up along its east bank. Sure enough, the noise of my bike rousted a blue heron. Snowy egrets and blue herons are common birds in this part of Texas, so I wasn't surprised to see one. But I wasn't very happy that I'd caused one to take to wing. So, once it took off, I stopped and turned off the bike. The bird circled around for a while and came to rest in the marsh at the opposite end from where I was.

Well, I was glad it landed, but wasn't particularly glad I was looking at hand-held shots of a blue heron from about 500 meters away. So here's what the heron looked like, full frame:



And a 100% crop:


Still, I was hoping that, if I could get closer, I might be able to get a better angle on the bird. So I started walking slowly in its direction. I hadn't gotten more tha 30 or 40 meters when the heron took off and flew in the opposite direction, finally coming to rest in a clump of trees about a kilometer away. Oh well, so much for getting any more shots of that bird.

So, I called it a day, and went home. My sojourn had resulted in a couple of interesting shots, so I guess it was worth it.