Canon FD lenses on Fuji X

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Rosedale

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I know you can get FD to FX adapters and so use old Canon lenses on new Fuji camera bodies but what I want to know is whether you have to manually open the aperture to focus and then stop down for the correct exposure to shoot or can you set the desired aperture initially and then just focus and shoot. If there is anyone out there who uses this setup then I'd be grateful for their experiences☺

Thanks
 
I don't own Fuji but have used manual lenses including FD's on MFT and Sony A7 and I'd be massively surprised if the Fuji's are different...

You can use these lenses in Manual mode or Aperture Priority and the aperture is all manual, you set it. The camera will meter at whatever aperture you set so if you are wide open and then stop down you'll see the effect in your VF. If in Aperture priority you'll see the shutter speed and / or ISO change as you stop down and if in Manual mode you'll see the EVF darken (if you haven't set it to maintain brightness) and the exposure cursor move to the left etc...

It's possible to focus at the aperture you are going to shoot but for best accuracy and best results I find it best to focus wide open and then stop down to the aperture I want to shoot at. This takes time and it's easier done in Aperture Priority as the camera will adjust the exposure as you stop down but in Manual you may have to adjust the shutter speed and / or ISO which takes more time.

Hope that helps.
 
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woof woof said:
It's possible to focus at the aperture you are going to shoot but for best accuracy and best results I find it best to focus wide open and then stop down to the aperture I want to shoot at.
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I actually do this the other way around i.e. focus at the aperture you desire, otherwise focus shift / breathing can cause problems.
 
Thanks for the very useful comments guys - much obliged
 
manualfocus-g said:
I actually do this the other way around i.e. focus at the aperture you desire, otherwise focus shift / breathing can cause problems.
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The key word there is can as this will be dependent on the lens as not all exhibit focus breathing and fortunately for me none of my lenses exhibit any focus breathing at least not to any noticeable degree and certainly not to a point at which focusing while stopped down gives better results than focusing wide open and then stopping down.

I assume this is why many cameras focus wide open or at some wider aperture and then stop down to take the shot. Even many manual focus cameras worked like this.

I assume this is largely because when focusing stopped down there'll be a relatively large amount of latitude and movement of the focus ring with apparently no effect (depending upon your aperture) because of the greater depth of field but when focusing wide open there'll be much less latitude and much less movement of the focus ring before changes are visible in the sharpness and accuracy of focus and this should translate into a sharper final image although any differences may only be visible when you look closely or pixel peep as whole images with focus that's even quite a way off can often look ok.

Focus accuracy, wide open v stopped down, and the possible effect of focus breathing are easy things to check for and a few shots and a few minutes checking the results on the pc should be enough for anyone to decide which is best for them and how they look at pictures. If you have the time I'd advise focusing wide open for best results if you are tempted to pixel peep or print big and look closely assuming that for you as for me focus breathing isn't an issue.
 
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Personally I wouldn't take the risk - but we have our own experiences to fall back on. The other consideration is whether you are shooting anything other than static scenes - if you are, then focusing and stopping down afterwards will likely cause problems as the focus area may have changed, or the you miss the shot by x milliseconds.
 
manualfocus-g said:
Personally I wouldn't take the risk - but we have our own experiences to fall back on. The other consideration is whether you are shooting anything other than static scenes - if you are, then focusing and stopping down afterwards will likely cause problems as the focus area may have changed, or the you miss the shot by x milliseconds.
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There's no risk... if you have the gear as all you need to do is shoot both ways and see what works and if there are any problems but of course if you buy kit that turns out to be affected by focus breathing it's an issue but I've never owned a lens that suffered from that to any degree noticeable by me.

Time is a factor when manually focusing but with landscape and static stuff even including posed people shots the couple of extra seconds may / may not be an issue. What I do is focus wide open and then count the clicks to the aperture I want to shoot at and as I don't take the camera from my eye the delay is minimal (click click click click, it's that fast) and so far no one has got bored and walked away :D

When shooting moving stuff or stuff likely to move you can use a quicker system, hyperfocal, Merklinger or zone or rely on peaking if you have it (and actually peaking at larger and smaller apertures should give a good indication of the depth of field and the movement you can put into the focus ring with little if any impact on what's peaking and what looks like it's in the DoF) and any of these ways of doing it may be perfectly fine for a picture to be viewed normally or even closely. The problems come when viewing isn't normal :D and that's when small focusing errors or lack of critical focus on the subject are more easily seen. Remember that there's only one distance that's perfectly sharp and focusing at smaller apertures must make it more difficult to achieve the most accurate focus on one thing if that's what you're going for.

Anyway, I've spent more time explaining this than it would take to try it :D
 
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The most critical thing is getting the right adapter. I had a hellish time with my early fast FD glass because the adapters just didn't fit the lens, except of course for the m4/3 one which I think was Fotodiox that came with the lenses! EDIT Nope wasn't fotodiox. Who's the German manufacturer of adapters? Really really good ones that are incredibly expensive?

EDIT AGAIN: Novoflex was the adapter!
 
I have some Novoflex adapters (actually I have three) and I also have some cheap evil bay specials which cost about £10 or so. The Novoflex ones cost £90 to £100. I may just have been lucky but I think that my cheap adapters work just as well as my Novoflex adapters.

If pixel peeping at high magnification maybe some of the cheap ones may show variation across the frame but I've never seen any and I'd probably advise people not to be as daft as me and pay £90 to £100 when the £10 ones are probably as good... unless you want to obsess and pixel peep and lets be honest that's what we do... so buy the Novoflex :D

Actually the only problem I've had with cheap adapters is when I opened the box and one was a set of extention tubes... but other than that, if they are actually adapters they seem to work just fine.
 
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manualfocus-g said:
I actually do this the other way around i.e. focus at the aperture you desire, otherwise focus shift / breathing can cause problems.
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Really? Merely stopping down the lens can shift the focus? How does that happen, if you're not moving any of the bits of glass in the lens?

Focus breathing is a different issue altogether. It refers to a change in focal length when a lens is focused. It happens because some lenses focus by moving elements around within the lens, and zoom by moving elements around within the lens, and it's really hard for the designers to separate the two effects.

The other effect you might be thinking of is parfocality. A lens is parfocal if it stays in focus when it's zoomed. Many lenses arent.

But I'm really struggling to see how stopping down the lens could affect the focus. Surely that goes against the fundamental operation of all SLRs? (Focus wide open, then stop down to shoot.)
 
Well, it's never happened to me that I can tell :D

Focusing wide and stopping down does take time though.
 
StewartR said:
Really? Merely stopping down the lens can shift the focus? How does that happen, if you're not moving any of the bits of glass in the lens?

Focus breathing is a different issue altogether. It refers to a change in focal length when a lens is focused. It happens because some lenses focus by moving elements around within the lens, and zoom by moving elements around within the lens, and it's really hard for the designers to separate the two effects.

The other effect you might be thinking of is parfocality. A lens is parfocal if it stays in focus when it's zoomed. Many lenses arent.

But I'm really struggling to see how stopping down the lens could affect the focus. Surely that goes against the fundamental operation of all SLRs? (Focus wide open, then stop down to shoot.)
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Maybe I'm confusing zooming with stopping down then...can't remember! Either way, unless you're on a tripod, stopping down after focusing with a manual focus lens can be a bit of a dodgy affair. At least with AF the lens stops down immediately after reaching focus.
 
StewartR said:
Really? Merely stopping down the lens can shift the focus? How does that happen, if you're not moving any of the bits of glass in the lens?

Focus breathing is a different issue altogether. It refers to a change in focal length when a lens is focused. It happens because some lenses focus by moving elements around within the lens, and zoom by moving elements around within the lens, and it's really hard for the designers to separate the two effects.

The other effect you might be thinking of is parfocality. A lens is parfocal if it stays in focus when it's zoomed. Many lenses arent.

But I'm really struggling to see how stopping down the lens could affect the focus. Surely that goes against the fundamental operation of all SLRs? (Focus wide open, then stop down to shoot.)
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Turns out I'm not going mad after all :D This characteristic does exist, and affects Zeiss lenses among others - see here:

http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Zeiss-85mm-f-1.4-ZE-Planar-Lens-Review.aspx
 
manualfocus-g said:
Maybe I'm confusing zooming with stopping down then...can't remember! Either way, unless you're on a tripod, stopping down after focusing with a manual focus lens can be a bit of a dodgy affair. At least with AF the lens stops down immediately after reaching focus.
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On this point and the linked article...

As I said in an earlier post, all this talk is taking longer than proving the point.

All that needs to be done is to mount the lens and take a series of shots using both techniques, focusing wide open and stopping down and focusing and shooting stopped down. The results can then be viewed and a conclusion reached in much less time than we've spent talking about it here :D

I've taken thousands of shots with both techniques and for me the best results are achieved when focusing wide open and stopping down but the problem is that my results were obtained by me with my camera and my lenses... use different lenses and you may be affected, or not.

There's a diglloyd article which you can google your way to which mentions f1.2 and f1.4 lenses and says that if you want to avoid the issue use f1.8 or f2 lenses.

There's also a piece at lensrentals here...

https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2010/10/how-to-shoot-with-wide-aperture-lenses/

As I only have four f1.2 / f1.4 manual lenses and all of my others are f1.8 or smaller maybe that's the answer for me and as I still get the best results by focusing wide open and stopping down when using these four lenses maybe they aren't affected lenses or maybe it's because most of my shots are not of subjects at close distances of 1m or so when any movememt of either subject or camera is also going to be a big factor.

As camera to subject distance will be a part of all this I'd suggest the following procedure...

1. Mount your lens on your camera.
2. Focus on a near subject, focus wide open and then stop down and shoot.
3. Repeat for each aperture.
4. Repeat for middle and far distance subjects.
5. Start again and this time focus and shoot at the same aperture.
6. Download and view the results.
7. Make your mind up.

Reading the articles it looks like this could be an issue with specific designs of f1.2 and f1.4 lenses at closer camera to subject distances but the answer as to if you and your lenses are affected or not can be arrived at a couple of ways, either google your specific lens or if you already have it shoot a series of shots and view the results.
 
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StewartR said:
Wow. Thanks, that was really interesting. I stand corrected.
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Focus shift is very common. A lot of lenses suffer from it to some extent (if you go looking for it) but it mostly passes unnoticed because the increased depth-of-field that automatically comes too is sufficient to cover and conceal it.
 
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