Canon fd manual focus

One would meter and set the aperture, focus and then use the second ring to stop down just before shooting. My sense of adventure came back and I returned to the shop, alas it was sold. Some most? They were, however, limited in the ability for open aperture metering, that came with the FD series. Finally Canon caught up with the rest of the pack with automatic diaphragm and open aperture metering, but also went one up in providing auto exposure aperture control — the basis of shutter priority automatic exposure control was laid.

But that is a story for another day. The breech lock features a rotating ring chrome ring in photo above where the user would align the red dot to the camera mounting index point also marked with a red dot and turn the chrome ring clockwise user facing camera. This results in a mount that is stationary, and was advertised as one that would maintain its accuracy forever since there is no movement of the mount.

Early lenses the chrome ring could move freely even without being mounted on a camera, later models feature a locking mechanism that is pressed when mounting on a camera — more on that in the disassembly part. Silver nose FD lenses also feature a long and unwieldy spring connecting the aperture ring to the lens barrel that is easily damaged — as I did as I did not understand the construct of the early FD lenses then my first disassembly of FD lenses.

Be warned — I have not recovered from that shock yet. Will need to wait till I get another junker silver nose to venture that way again. Clearly I went into the lens without reviewing the repair manual, to my detriment. The AR slipped off and I tried to put it back without realizing there is a long spring there, and the kinks in the photo was the result. This is also a before and after photo — the lens on the left had been serviced, the one on the right not yet.

I normally will bring the parts down to as far as I can get, and wash them clean, sometimes lighter fluid watch out for fire hazards! Caution: if you wash with water you must have a way to adequately dry the parts beyond simple wiping down. In the black nose FD lenses were introduced. True to Canon manual focus tradition, the lens mount got that bit more complicated with this new rehash. The motivation to refresh the lens mount without changing the lens mount per se was to speed up changing lens — the new FD mount behaves like a bayonet mount while retaining the stationary lens interface.

How cool is that, from the outside, until we start to examine how this is achieved! This is best illustrated with photographs. Mounting a new FD lens — align the red bead against the camera body red dot. The lens in mounting position. Note the red dot at the back of the lens aligns with the red bead on the side of the barrel. Lens mounted. Turning the lens clockwise view from the front the whole barrel moved, just like a bayonet lens.

The lens in the mounted position. Note the position of the red bead related to the red dot. What happened? The entire barrel has rotated to the mounted position, but the rear of the lens stay exactly at the same position as it was aligned the camera. Repeating in case you missed it — note the red bead on lens barrel and the red dot painted depression on the lens rear.

When the red bead is aligned to the red dot on the camera body, the red dot is also aligned to the red dot on the camera body. When the lens bayonets onto the camera body watch the red bead , the lens body rotates with the red dot on the lens while the rear of lens with all the connections remains stationary.

The reader might want to look at the above photos and read this paragraph again to understand the new FD mechanism! So the lens body moves and the rear mounting and connecting parts remain stationary.

I have to salute the Canon engineers in this innovative refresh, but along with the original Breech Lock mount that is already complicated beyond belief came another layer of complication!

And I find myself agreeing with him when I worked on the FDn lenses! One other thing about FDn lenses, many of them have plastic encased sealed optical units, that is impossible to separate so some lenses if infected with fungus, are impossible to clean. The Canon Museum can be found here: Canon Museum lens hall.

It gives a comprehensive view of all Canon lenses, some with optical diagram as well. There is a simple way of finding out how old your Canon FD lens is — there is a date code at the rear of the lens. We will first discuss the older Canon FD mount — the chrome breech lock ring version. I will cover the FDn mount in the next section. The reader will want to pay particular attention to the terms unmounted and mounted positions. At the unmounted state, the Red Dot aligns with the Positioning Pin — which matches a gap in the camera mount and get depressed when mated to the camera.

Later versions of this lens when the lens is pressed against the camera the breech lock will rotate slightly to begin the process of mounting the lens to the camera. In this unmounted state the aperture mechanism does not work at all! Just above the Positioning Pin there is a lever that would be the first thing to be pressed down and the chrome breech lock rotated when mounting the lens to a camera, and when we need to access the lens through the mount.

The lens in the unmounted state. In this state nothing changes when you turn the aperture ring. Pressing the lever the breech lock release above the positioning pin above the date stamp mark and turning the breech lock counter-clockwise view from rear brings the lens into the mount state. In this mounted state the aperture mechanism works fully!

This is the first mystery of the FD mount! We have to work on the lens where the mechanisms are working so we can get the connections done correctly. The lens in the mounted state and aperture set at minimum. Beneath the chrome ring looking from the rear, like the photos above there are 3 small screws that hold the breech lock mount to the lens barrel. Not all 3 are visible at the same time, so review them and remove one in the unmounted state, and the other 2 in the mounted state.

Insider view of the FD breech lock mount at the unmounted position. Not the state you want to work in. With this view the mounting action goes clockwise for the breech lock — only the chrome ring moves. Notice there is a stopper that moves out of the way of and allows the ASL to move, pulled by the very long spring.

Turning the aperture ring AR would move an AR coupler to limit where the ASL stops — thereby transmitting mechanically the aperture set to the camera body. This AR coupler would move with the AR, and is an important piece to reinstall the aperture ring detent ball bearings. Exact position of this coupler must be noted for correct setting of aperture as well as constraining the ASL to the correct position previous photo.

In the method I disassemble the lens, the aperture is set at maximum, which corresponds to the flat part of the aperture curve. When the AR moves the metal strip on the outer collar moves, and towards the end at the minimum aperture the strip has a bump and pushes the EE switch pin up and thus will only allow the lens to be set to O or A when the camera has a corresponding hole to allow the EE switch pin to sit in.

At this time remove and keep the EE switch pin save. Or it may launch itself on the crevice on the floor and defy the most ardent search party conducted to find it! So much ink spilled key strokes typed just to describe the aperture signaling, coupling, and stopping-down mechanism! Continuing from our discussion about the FDn mount, the reader is reminded that as with the breech lock mount the lens mechanisms apart from focusing do not operate in the unmounted position.

So we again need to get the lens to the operational state. Set the aperture to minimum before we start. Unmounted position. Note: because the barrel moves my photos here will not align with the camera position, since the rear red dot is where the camera red dot is when mounted. It is important to adopt a convention of your own, requires some discipline when taking the photo, but it aids with later use of the photo, instead of going, what the heck is the position of this thing?

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