Are FD lenses still viable on M43?

wardy07

wardy07

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This may be a subject that's been covered before but as a new boy to M43 (Olympus EM1), are old FD lenses a viable option in particular for Wildlife photography? If so, which ones are any good?
I'm looking into 300mm plus options as the OMD long lenses are expensive and I just wondered if the FD way is worth considering, although I appreciate they would be manual focus.
 
YES!!!!!

I have a few FD lenses and they work well on compact system cameras. I use old manual lenses on both my Panasonic MFT cameras and my Sony A7. Adapters start at under £10 on evil bay or you can buy a branded one. I have a FD to Sony Novoflex adapter, they cost around £90.

Can't really advise you about wildlife lenses as I only have shorter primes.
 
woof woof said:
YES!!!!!

I have a few FD lenses and they work well on compact system cameras. I use old manual lenses on both my Panasonic MFT cameras and my Sony A7. Adapters start at under £10 on evil bay or you can buy a branded one. I have a FD to Sony Novoflex adapter, they cost around £90.

Can't really advise you about wildlife lenses as I only have shorter primes.
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Thank you, that's encouraging - be nice to know if anyone has hands on experience with the longer lenses as well.
 
Manual focusing on a long prime for wildlife probably won't be much fun!
 
The longest I've used is 135mm on MFT and 210mm on my A7, all unstabilised. It can be done but I keep the shutter speed up and if going longer a steady hand or a tripod might be needed or will IS help? I don't know as I've not used these lenses with an in body IS camera.
 
a1ex2001 said:
Manual focusing on a long prime for wildlife probably won't be much fun!
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Thanks that was my thinking to be honest but I was thinking for static shots maybe? I realise that BIF or fast moving subjects would be difficult but worth asking anyway.
 
woof woof said:
The longest I've used is 135mm on MFT and 210mm on my A7, all unstabilised. It can be done but I keep the shutter speed up and if going longer a steady hand or a tripod might be needed or will IS help? I don't know as I've not used these lenses with an in body IS camera.
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I was hoping the |IBIS would help but don't know how effecrtive it would be on these older lenses. I have no issue using a tripod but I guess we're basck into carrying weight again which kind of defeats the purpose of M43!
It was just a thought as I'm trying to find a way out of buying the new Panasonic 100-400 or Olympus 300 f4..well not trying too hard cos I want one!!
 
With peaking even moving subjects are possible but best results are probably with the magnified view which takes more time.

I suppose a lot depends on the wildlife and shooting circumstance. If you're sat waiting for something to walk into the shot you'll have time to pre focus and be almost there but if shooting squirrels in the park you may struggle.
 
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I used an FD Tokina 300mm f2.8 very effectively for motorsport. I used to prefocus and then used the focus peaking feature on my G6 and GX7 to see when my subject had entered the plane of focus. Motorsports is relatively easy to do this with as the movement is very predictable.

Cheers,

Simon
 
Boldonian said:
....I hate the FD mount though.
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Wash your mouth out :)
The original FD, where the collar rotated was one of the best lens mounts EVER, didnt need to rotate the lens and self adjusting for wear. Youngsters honestly!

Matt
 
Boldonian said:
...I hate the FD mount though.
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Are you going to finish this post any time soon or do we all have to guess why you hate the FD mount?
 
Maybe I should be more specific here - I've seen a Canon FD 300 f4 lens and also a Canon FD 400 f4.5 at sub £200 price and was wondering if either of these are equal to or better than an Olympus 75-300 m43 lens?
If I'm not going to gain anything with either of these lenses, I'll just wait for the new m43 lenses to arrive.
 
I had a Tokina 100-300mm F4 ATX in FD mount which I used on a Fuji XT1, I had some excellent results with it and it was a cracking piece of glass. If you can MF, these will be better than some of the kit lenses out there. In general constant aperture or prime lenses are going to be better than some zooms, but you miss the optical coatings, AF, VR etc... of the modern lenses. For the money, I would try one and see how you get on, if not suitable you would probably sell, for no loss, or little money.

If you do go for one, try and get one with a tripod mount. I found it in-valuable for the Tokina mentioned above, these lenses are quality and come with the weight.
 
To add to above, I tried to stick to M42 or FD mounts and as I probably had over 60 MF lenses when I was using Fuji. The FD was my preference of the twist / lock of the mechanism and stayed better than some of the other mounts I tried.
 
Swanseajack said:
I had a Tokina 100-300mm F4 ATX in FD mount which I used on a Fuji XT1, I had some excellent results with it and it was a cracking piece of glass. If you can MF, these will be better than some of the kit lenses out there. In general constant aperture or prime lenses are going to be better than some zooms, but you miss the optical coatings, AF, VR etc... of the modern lenses. For the money, I would try one and see how you get on, if not suitable you would probably sell, for no loss, or little money.

If you do go for one, try and get one with a tripod mount. I found it in-valuable for the Tokina mentioned above, these lenses are quality and come with the weight.
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Thanks Simon, that's the answer I was looking for. I appreciate the prime over zoom quality issues and the tripod mount would be essential as well so your comments are really appreciated.
I'll think over it a bit more and then decide but as you say, re selling wouldn't cause too much distress to the wallet.
 
wardy07 said:
Thanks Simon, that's the answer I was looking for. I appreciate the prime over zoom quality issues and the tripod mount would be essential as well so your comments are really appreciated.
I'll think over it a bit more and then decide but as you say, re selling wouldn't cause too much distress to the wallet.
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Another thing I forgot to mention. With my Tokina, IIRC I was also able to use a 1.4 or 2.0 Teleconverter which was always handy.
 
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