My CaNikon Part 1 - How I did it

Trying out a new system is often times exciting and challenging.  But I've got to tell yah', mixing them up is waaaay more fun.  As I blogged a couple of weeks ago, I recently started trying out using Canon lenses with my Nikon camera.  It's been really fun, and I'll be sharing the experience with you on the next few posts.  But first things first, how do you do it?

The Lens

As you might have noticed, I am using a differently looking Canon lens than the ones you Canon users have been using/seeing.  These are Canon F - mount lenses (or FD, great resource link here), the legacy lens mount that Canon dumped back in the early 80's (I think).  All their lenses after that have been EF/EFS mounts, which is what is being used on their digital cameras. Canon FDs are fully manual, aperture ring mount lenses.  They are made of metal and is as heavy as a they come.  They didn't have white versions before and all where shiny black.

Now, Nikon didn't shift lens mounts since the early 50's, why not just use those lenses since you'll be manually focusing anyway? Well I happened to have 4 of these FD lenses and a Canon film camera, so I thought why not use them right?  And from the looks of it, I really like the look and feel of these legacy lenses. I have a 24mm f/2.8, a 50mm f/1.4, a 70-210mm Macro f/4 and a 35-70mm Macro  f/3.5-4.5. I'm a cheapskate, so I basically got 4 "new" lenses for free.  Well not exactly......

The Adapter

So since these are 2 different brands and systems, how did I manage to attach them?  The answer is through the help of a Canon FD to Nikon Body adapter.  Now this is not a common adapter, mind you.  You normally see people using old Nikon lenses on their Canon, Olympus, Panasonic etc. cameras, but seldom do you see it the other way around.  As a matter of fact, the product list here (scroll way down) shows that they only have a few adapters for Nikon bodies.  I first saw this adapter 2 years ago on a site that sells them in the US.  So when I saw this available here locally, I ordered at once.

The adapter is all metal and looks like is durable enough to take some abuse from yours truly.  It comes with a box and nothing else. Don't expect for a manual with this one.  Basically one side (black) is the Nikon side (attach that to your camera) and the other (silver) is the Canon FD side.  No electronics on this baby.  It does have a piece of glass in the middle to compensate for the separation from the sensor, the adapter and the lens.  If you weren't familiar with how the lens attaches to the front, you'll have a really hard time attaching them. You should here a click when you attach them correctly.

 The adapter also has a locking mechanism which when placed on "lock"  the lens will go to its widest aperture available.  So when you want to adjust the aperture, you'll have to make sure it's in the "open" setting.  I don't have a photo of that,  unfortunately.  The glass in the middle adds about .2x to your focal length, which made my 24mm to a 28mm from my very unscientific observations.

So before we talk about how the output photos are, I could say that to me, this is already a very good investment since I could use some paper weights on a digital camera.  There's about 20-30 years of "age-gap" between lens and camera, which I find really interesting.

On our next post, we'll talk about how to use the lenses on the camera.



rb