Canon FD 50mm f1.8 - vintage lens review

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Back in 2018 I borrowed two lenses from a friend: the Canon FD 24mm f2.8 and 100mm f2.8 to try and review here on the channel and we can say that they helped igniting my love for vintage lenses.

In 2019 I got the 28mm f2.8 that I've already shown you and later the same year this 50mm f1.8 and I've been holding on to it since then because it never felt the right moment to review it, for some reason, but i guess the time has come.

Let's take a closer look.

Canon FD lenses are pretty small and the 50mm is no different being only 37mm long and 180 grams of weight, thanks to the mostly hard plastic body. The iris has five rounded blades, the aperture is clicked and it goes from f1.8 to f22. Pressing the little button on the side and turning the aperture ring past 22 puts the lens into auto exposure mode, but it only works on film cameras. The focusing ring turns a little bit less than 180 degrees and minimum focusing distance is, well, not really impressive at 60 centimeters.

Canon FD flange distance is 42mm, making them easy to adapt to mirrorless camera. (affiliate link)

When I bought this lens I did notice the little scratches in the coating of the front element, but I knew it wouldn't affect the image quality; in fact, the lens is just as sharp as the others that I have used in the past, even wide open, and colors match really well, sharing the slightly desaturated look.

Chromatic aberration and flaring are present but well controlled, even with the light scratches on the coating and pointing straight to the sun.

Wide open I didn't find much loss in sharpness and contrast. Boke balls are not the softest, in fact they are pretty sharp and present a bit of onion skin edges and only retain a round shape in the center of the frame.

I also took a couple of side-by-side comparison shots with one of its direct competitors, the Pentacon 50mm f1.8 and, to be honest, there is not much of a difference in image quality and they are equally sharp. The Pentacon has cooler tones, a little bit of a swirl, hexagonal boke and can focus 30 centimeters closer, so at the end of the day it's just a matter of which one you prefer.

Once again, Canon FD lenses prove themselves to be a solid and reliable choice, so much so that they have gained popularity even outside the vintage community. So i would like to take a second and remind you that you don't have to follow trends, you don't have to buy whatever lens everyone else is buying. You can be free to experiment, try different lenses and find what you like and enjoy the most; and with that said, as always, if you have any questions feel free to leave them in the comments below and don't forget to check the video for all the samples.



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