@@MarkHoltze L‘s are almost affordable. Some just had to sell their firstborn to get one. I myself own a 80-200 f4 L and still have two child’s left. 🤣😂
Adapters are my thing as it is the cheaper alternatives to buying new lenses that cost way too much for what I want to do with vintage lenses on my mirrorless cameras (Sony A7RII) that just work! Sharp and inexpensive! Good seeing you Mark!
The Simmod is the only adapter that gives out the same impression of utter precision as the Novoflex, which I was considering more and more seriously despite its price. Which I deemed was worth not bothering about those adapters with a locking ring that doesn’t stay in the lock position. And then this video pointed out this adapter, I immediately ordered one and I just love it. It just becomes part of the camera body. The fitting of a lens is as simple as matching the dots, while making sure the lens and the mount on the adapter are flat one against another as the lens’ dot is aligned with the adapter’s white dot ; then rotate the lens so as to slide its dot towards the adapter’s red one, where the lens will settle in place in the mount. Then it only needs to be locked in place by turning the silver ring (breech lock) or the whole body (bayonet mount, nFD lenses) until it clicks. The old silver ring breech lock mount are potentially trickier, as the ring can start rotating just a smidge before there’s perfect contact, if one spring-loaded pin is touched while trying to fit the lens in. In that case you need to reset the lens’ ring to its open position.
You're great Mark... as usual :) Have to admit I never got on with the breach locking mechanism on Canon FD lenses which means I'm missing out on some pretty stellar performers, but with so many alternatives in the vintage field, well... I'll get around to them eventually by which time I might have swapped back to a Canon RF from my current Sony A7r, what goes around comes around and around we go again.
@@MarkHoltze This is the beauty of vintage lenses, such a lot to experiment with and no need for brand loyalty although obviously if you were looking for equivalence across a range of focal lengths would make sense to collect as sets. I'm currently playing with and enjoying a range of Nikon AIS lenses, 28mm f2.8 AIS (importantly improved over previous AI version), 50mm f1.8, 55mm micro f2.8 AIS (one of the sharpest lens I have used, even sharper than Zeiss Makro Planar), the 85mm AIS (less inspiring to be honest) and a 105mm f2.5 which makes up for it. One of the nicest aspects if that they all have 52mm filters and are Takumar kind of small, but each have 7 aperture blades and very decent contrast... anyway, definitely worth a poke.
Your videos are fantastic, great humor and incredible videography. The Margaret Atwood cameo was great; Canadians merit their amazing contributions to world culture, but I didn't get the joke, please explain.
Cameo was to validate my “busy”. Had some amazing shoot opportunities and she was one of them; hence my absence from the platform. My busy is Mrs Atwood’s morning coffee. She was recorded with the red and Contax Zeiss set of primes.
They work perfectly with mirrorless systems and you get benefits of EVF which offer you manual focus aides like focus peeking and focus zoom. DSLR’s wotb some lenses have comparability issues (infinity focus, mirror hitting back of the lens) and optical viewfinder without any focus sides is a bit harder with wider lenses. You can do it, just higher maintenance
I’m having a focusing issue I need some help diagnosing. I have 3 fd lenses. 2 are fd and 1 nfd. The fd lenses work perfectly and focus all the way through the range. My nfd lens (28mm f2 so it’s important lol) won’t focus at infinity. Have you tested any other Nfd lenses and were you able to focus at infinity? I’m using the Urth FD to RF adapter.
It could be the lens but I’m not familiar with that adapter personally. The lens might be damaged or defective with its age? No reason the NFD’s should be any different; they’re all the same mount.
There is zero issue with FD lenses on R bodies with infinity focus unless the lens is pooched. FD and EF had a flange distance issue, this issue is removed with all canon mirrorless bodies.
The only one I have is the 70-210 which is great value. I hear the 34-70 is good though. I don’t typically use vintage zooms all that much. They’re not as up to modern scrutiny as the primes I feel.
Not sure how it directly compares to Urth as I've never used one of those before. I have criteria for adapting lenses and they must be tough, work properly and have no play in the mount given how I'm using them. This adapter is in the same category as the expensive PL ones i've found and the price reflects that. Given the product is designed and approved by a working DP I tend to be a bit bias towards his stuff, especially since i've been using SIMMOD stuff for a few years now and that added quality has given me the confidence I need to deploy these lenses in a variety of shooting scenarios. That said, value is highly subjective and if you can get the same thing for less and are happy with it, that's great to hear :). I tend to go with what works and stick with it until given a reason to look elsewhere. Hope that helps mate.
@@MarkHoltze Just to be perfectly clear, I was not trying to be clever or anything, it was an honest question. I love my FD lenses (and your content has most certainly helped in that direction!), and I’m always on the lookout for the best possible solutions in utilizing them- I went from APS-C to FF mainly in order to enjoy them in their fullness! So, I’m not saying or implying that Urth (or any other brand) is as good, I was merely asking. Thanks as always for the cool stuff, and I do hope that lens survived the drop :-)
Wau the price is ridiculous! Fotasy adapter for 12$ from eBay.....Works flawlessly and feel quality! Thanks to it price all of my FD lenses can have own adapter which mean less stress to the old mechanic part of the lens! .
Options are nice, SIMMOD seems to target a higher end user market, maybe those who are paid DP's adapting old lenses for film sets. I have Fotasy MD to L and i get wiggle in all my Rokkors, fine for just out taking shots, but unacceptable on a professional video shoot IMHO.
@@MarkHoltze let me disagree. If you use fd on pro set you know what you dealing with. There is no play between fotasy and Lens (I have 3 of them)....there is a play in Fd focus ring.... i did not watch full length of the video but I bet you did not buy the adapter.
@@ondrejjanoska660 You may disagree with me all you want, but I'm going by my personal experience with a Fotasy adapter on my Rokkors. Your experience varies, that's fine, I'm happy for you. I didn't love the experience with the Fotasy so I haven't purchased additional ones, I've had great experience with Fotodiox and Simmod. Yes I did purchase the adapter at full retail price along with the mods that are on my lenses actually. Simmod is a small company run by a CSA cinematographer, I trust the products he sells based on both experience and reputation alone and i'm fully happy to support them as such. Had I been given the adapter for free I would have disclosed that in the video, but of course that compromises the incentive for me to do a video. I don't do this as a job, I do it to inform and educate, this isnt a comparison to a Fotasy adpater, it's simply a look at something I enjoy. I've done videos on other adapters, this isn't out of my wheelhouse as adapting vintage lenses is a big part of what I do, once and awhile I'll do a video on one if I feel like it. That's also NOT an affiliate link to the adapter FYI, I make no money on this, I have no financial incentive at all.
I felt that drop on the 70-210. Missing your Takumar videos! Your FD lens videos are amazing too, as always. By any chance, are you going to make videos on other Minolta lenses?
I had missed you and your humour, Mark. On another note, I'm glad I already have a bunch of FD lenses (my favourites as well, I started photography with that system), because I've already noticed they're not so cheap anymore on the used market, unless you're looking for the 50mm f/1.8. Oh, and one FD lens I was given recently that gave me surprising results is the 35mm f/3.5. Sharp and with a good 'character' - at least on an APS-C sensor. Cheers! --Rick
You really do need more subs... I subbed a long time ago... so yeah. Anyway. Thanks for the heart attack within one heartbeat of clicking play. Ah yes... FD lenses. Watching you describe the pin alignment brings back a very painful memory from back around 1977-ish. Ether as a senior in HS or just after graduating, I purchased my own, brand-spanking new Canon AE-1 with a 50mm F1.8. Taking pictures inspired me to go pro. Did baby photography door to door for a couple years using a medium format twin lens Rolleiflex, then graduated to weddings--which required photogs to use their own equipment (35mm film market). I added another lens, zoom I believe. Attempted swapping lenses for the first time. I think it was my 3rd job ever... found that the alternate lens was too slow and cumbersome (especially being so new and nervous on the job), so I slapped on the 50mm F1.8. Wouldn't ya know... that darned aperture lever, somehow, someway, didn't link quite properly. I ended up shooting the entire evening wedding using off camera lights and flash at F8 - F11 (lens) but since the aperture didn't stop down, all the pics were about 5 or 6 stops overexposed. For those who never worked with old SLRs and film, this may not make sense. But camera design allowed focusing wide-open for minimum depth of field and a brighter viewfinder. The lens stops down during the exposure. There is no chimping or instant review, so no way to catch the error without actually doing an open-back exposure test, or staring into the lens while doing an exposure to make sure the mechanics were working. Wish someone trained me on this... I never imagined such an f-up was possible at the time. This was for a studio, mind you. They were none too happy, so that was my last job for them. Lesson learned, that never happened again. I ended up selling my canon gear a couple years (after adding an A1, Pellix, and other lenses) and purchased a brand spanking new Contax RTS, with a Zeiss 50mm, 35mm, and 85mm f2.8. Later, I added the 60 macro and the 85mm f1.4. And then... tada... many (many) years later, an old girlfriend helped herself to all my gear and made the entire outfit (save the 35mm f2.8 which I still have) a gift for her new boyfriend after we parted ways. The DA wouldn't take the case as a theft. True story. Just recently I've started collecting gear (well, over the last few years). Have a set of Leica Rs, and have recently been picking up Contax Zeiss... along with an old RTS body, and a second RTS II body. I also have a few ZE lenses that are on the old optical design. I.e., the 28 F2 is the same optically, though the coatings are different. I nearly dabbled with Takomar stuff after finding your channel some years back. More recently I bought an adapter for FD (still more than a year ago), but still have yet to take the plunge with FDs yet. I did see the Media Division video about the FDs you mentioned (probably why I bought the adapter), along with a couple of their other vids that are more like movie-slash-documentaries. Good stuff. Anyway, enjoy your high production values as always. You have a fun style in your presentation. Save the heart attack stuff. I'm a little old to be getting juiced that way (kidding). Happy to see the brass adapter; If i do get an FD lens (uh oh... will lead to another lens collection), I'll look at getting that one. I feel a GAS attack coming on so I'll end it here.
between you and I, Leica R's, Contax Zeiss and Takumar's.....i'm not that interested in FD's, but the adapter at least allows me to play around with them on the Komodo. I think if I follow any lead now it needs to be WEIRD lenses with some cool history, simply lens testing the optics now is kind of boring me as I find they're all starting to look the same. 100 + year old lenses, lets go! ANyway thanks for the wonderful comment mate, I enjoyed reading it!
This looks exactly the same as my Novoflex adapter so that's another option for people interested in them. In my experience I would add its best to (looking at the lens) turn anticlockwise to the centre dot then clockwise to lock. Otherwise you'll not properly engage the silver pin and (not like I shot 30 frames before realising I had no aperture control) you'll be shooting wide open until you remount it 😅😅
The Simmod is the only adapter that gives out the same impression of utter precision as the Novoflex, which I was considering more and more seriously despite its price. Which I deemed was worth not bothering about those adapters with a locking ring that doesn’t stay in the lock position. And then this video pointed out this adapter, I immediately ordered one and I just love it. It just becomes part of the camera body. The fitting of a lens is as simple as matching the dots, while making sure the lens and the mount on the adapter are flat one against another as the lens’ dot is aligned with the adapter’s white dot ; then rotate the lens so as to slide its dot towards the red one, where it will fall in place. It just needs to be locked in by turning until it clicks. The old silver ring breech lock mount are potentially trickier, as the ring can start rotating before there’s perfect contact, if one spring-loaded pin is touched while trying to fit the lens in. In that case you need to reset the lens’ ring to its open position.
I THINK F mounts have a similar issue as canon DSLR's do with FD, they can't achieve infinity focus without a glass element adapter, but I COULD be wrong. I'm not that informed on the Nikon system unfortunately, other than Ai-s lenses are BOSS ;)
the egg :D also, shout out to foc'off... you know I've only got one FD, the classic nifty. and I love that lens. Always meant to get more, but they do not play well with EF.
The egg….,practical effects setup lol. Ya FF’s are great but kind of avoided once I moved off Sony primarily, this brings them back into the equation a bit; but almost rather explore less hype options.
Great video. Now can you look at the new permanent conversion of FD to EF? I think SIMMOD has their new mounts finally available. As a C70, C100 and R6 user, I like the idea of using FD lenses with the official canon speedbooster for the C70!
I wish the makers of these adapters would also make a let’s call it a pro version. This version would be shimable, or what ever they call it when back focus ability is built into a lens.
This is a pro version I would say. Infinity focus absolutely, built solid and zero play in the mount. There’s a reason it’s more than the comp imho. If your lens didn’t focus on a regular mount it could be the lens, perhaps it was taken apart at one point and not correctly put back together but it should focus on a regular adapter.
@@MarkHoltze I was making a more general comment. I have had no problem with the better adapters with fd. But you see cine lenses all over the place in both ef and pl mount. Not all manufactures give you the shimablity (love making up words) for the ef side. Those who want it or need it are probably to few to make it worth while.
Hi Mark. Your videos are awesome! I just subscribed! Question. And this is kinda embarrassing. I recently bought a Canon 50mm FD and it came with a FD to RF adapter ON it. But I shoot with Sony. I want to take the adapter OFF. but I cannot for the life of me, figure out how. Please make a video that quickly shows how to take it off!!
Hello first of all let me tell you that all your content is pretty good and informative and I don't miss a video, but I would like to ask something because I bought a nfd canon lens 28mm f2 to use with my bmpcc4k in my viltrox adapter and I already bought a lot of different adaptors and so far no luck if anyone here have any suggestion or Mark, that will be awesome, thanks in advance
