Review: Fotodiox FD to NEX Adapter
As you may have noticed recently, I have become almost obsessed with my new Sony NEX 5n. With image quality surpassing most current prosumer DSLRs, the 5n is also a a fun camera to use because of its small size. Since I take the 5n everywhere, it also is allowing me to experiment with a number of different things. One product came up in some searches that looked really interesting, a Canon FD lens adapter for the 5n. At $22.95, the Fotodiox FD to NEX adapter would allow me to pull out my old Canon FD lenses that I used to use on my Canon AE-1 film camera.
Why would I want to do this? Why not? I have an investment in older lenses that have been sitting around collecting dust for years with very, very rare usage. These lenses are pretty decent as I have a 28mm f/2.8, a 50mm f/2.8, and a 100-300mm f/5.6. Since I have them, I might as well use them. With three more lenses to choose from, it would certainly open up my shooting options.
Is there a downside? Of course there is. Older FD lenses like these are manual focus. This presents a unique challenge, obviously not an impossible challenge as we did shoot with these lenses for many years and manual focus wasn’t an issue. The Canon AE-1 had an interesting means of helping with focusing with a small circle you would see in the middle of the lens, as you adjusted focus a split image would get further apart or closer together, when it became a solid image then you were in focus. This method worked extremely well but unfortunately is not available on the Sony NEX 5n.
Fortunately there is a solution with the NEX cameras called Focus Peaking. Focus Peaking will draw a color around an image to help you tell if it is in focus. In this image I have focus peaking turned to yellow and you can see that the love seat should be in good focus. The focus peaking is only part of the focusing tool. I like to use the focus peaking as a “rough focus” which will get me extremely close. To fine tune the focus, tap on the LCD screen for a 14x zoom into the image. With focus peaking and zoom, you can get extremely good results.
Focus Peaking on the Sony NEX 5n
The results are quite good although the real challenge is trying to handhold a 100-300mm lens (so image stabilization) on a super light camera body. That issue aside, I love the images I get when using these older lenses. Here are a few examples:
If you have a Sony NEX camera and have some old lenses laying around, it may be well worth it to drop $23 on a Fotodiox FD to NEX adapter for yourself. I don’t use it all the time, but when I do, I really like what I get.
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