Canon FD 85mm 1.8 - Review
Canon’s FD 85mm 1.8 is a 1970’s – 80’s portrait lens that boasts fast performance in a MF body. Since the mirrorless market reinvented MF vintage lenses for many of us, we have watched the price go from basically nothing in 2005 to climbing steadily once again, something we may have not noticed since these remarkable lenses were first produced. If you’re lucky enough to have an old camera bag full of FD lenses, then the mirrorless market could be just what you need to reignite your love of old glass.
I purchased this FD from japan around 12 months ago, the external casing has slight wear, something I’ve come to expect from older glass. But the optics are still in good condition, no blemishes, no deep scratches, nothing to degrade image quality.
Features
F/1.8 maximum Aperture
Crisp image quality
Full Frame format
Manual Focus
Tech Specs
Focal Distance - 85mm
Production Years – 1992 – Current
Optical Formula - 9 elements in 7 groups
Aperture Range - f/1.8 - f/22
Angle of View – 24
Minimum Focusing Distance - 0.9 m
Lens Mount – Canon FD
Weight - .425 kg
Filter Thread - 58mm
MF
Build Quality
Metal Mounting
Plastic / Metal Housing
Dust sealing
Personalised test charts in a controlled environment for image sharpness - nothing else. none of the following photo's have been post-processed in any way - no output sharpening.
As I started testing lenses for my own information (whether or not that 1.2 Canon really produces a higher overall image quality then a $50 helios) I did not do true 100% crops, Just enough to show Image sharpness differences. They are not a representation on a pixel level, but enough to show image quality. With the representation of the first image, you can see how much cropping has been done to zoom into the centre of the map. Understandably with newer full frame high MP camera's such as the sony A7, Nikon D810, Canon 5d pick up extreme levels of detail in which most vintage primes were probably not designed for, its at this level of detail that we start to see slight flaws in different lenses over all sharpness. Personally the level of detail that even these old lenses pick up sharply is more then enough for an enthusiast such as myself.
Centre crops -
Like most lenses, the FD 85mm 1.8 suffers from soft edges until around F/5.6.
Some shots taken with the FD 85mm 1.8;
Here I stack the FD and EF side by side in a sharpness test, personally I think the lack of contrast in the FD is the major difference, both lenses are quite reasonable wide open.
Now I’ve tried to take the same Image with the FD as I have with the EF, real world testing to compare overall contrast and image quality.
Although changes in light occur frequently during real world testing, I believe the images will show a true representation in the differences in production techniques, lens coatings and design over the past 30 years.
