Hello,

This blog thing is not working very well for me.  I am working on a number of project but I can’t tell you what they are or who they are for.So I thought I would send out some info on a personal project I am working on.

As most of you know I am a hard core Canon Fan Boy.  But late last fall on a whim I picked up a Sony a6000 mirror-less camera.  It works with most of My Canon glass, Via a Metabones adapter, It has a bigger sensor then my 7Dm2, a 1.5APC at 24mp, it shots faster at 11fps and it’s very light, it’s a phenomenal little camera.  Unless there is a need for a something different I do most of my scouting with it.

Even though it will use my EF lens.  There are a few lens I do not have and back in the day of Canon FD lens there where a few I really liked and with the right adapter from Metabones I can now get them very inexpensively.   

The FD lens are all manual but with the focus assist on the a6000 they work very well.

I now have a FD 50mm macro, very sharp, I think as sharp as my old EF 100mm non L macro.  A FD 55mm f1.2 chrome nose.  It is very sharp wide open and with the lens coatings and the chrome nose I think it looks cool on the all black a6000.  Also a Canon EF 50mmf1.2L is $1500.00 I go my FD for $89.00 on eBay.   And a lens I always wanted to try, the Canon FD 500mm f8 mirror.   I mean really try, I did bough one from the Canon rep a few time back in the 80es but didn’t like the results.  So I found one at Glazers in Seattle for $150.  And here are the results.     

Re cape for all these photos I used: 

here is the link: Sony a6000 & 500mm-ajsrszwm-H234Filmed with a Sony a6000 and a Canon 500mm f8 Mirror. On this camera with a 1.5 APC crop that is 750mm http://www.dougonlocation.com/Sony a6000-500mm

Sony a6000-1.5x APC at 24mp with the 16-50 kit lens it was $600. At Pro Photo.

Canon FD 500mm f8 mirror, on the a6000 it is equivalent to 750mm and the whole kit only weights 1223 grams, 2lb 11oz.

Because of the design of the lens you get doughnut shaped hi lights and some times in the background blur as well.   Fun for a few shoots but can be very distracting.

But if you watch for it, you will get some nice photos.  I did nothing in post on any of the photos to fix that.  The fore ground and back grounds are as I filmed them.  

The FD 500mm mirror 1 stop slower then Canon’s 800mm , the whole kit  camera and lens weights and costs less then the gimbal you would need to put the 800mm lens on a tripod.   

All these photos where hand held…….

One more thing when you mount FD to EOS with most adapters you loss infinity focus.  In fact most FD lens become macros unless you get the adapter with glass elements and so fare I have not found any of them that work all that well.    You also loss a stop.

But with the 500mm mirror infinity focus is beyond 200 feet.  So you can use the FD to EOS non-element adapter and get nice results.  I will let you know how it goes.  

And then there's the irony, of using a mirrored lens on a mirror-less camera….