There has been some confusion over the fuction of Canon FD lenses.
Canon, in the 60's and 70's was an up and coming SLR Film camera maker. Their main rival was of course, Nikon the professional standard, but also Pentax, Yaschica/Contax ( Zeiss), Leica etc.... mostly familiar names.
Canon always interested in leading technology, descided to make one of the first, if not the first, Automatic exposure/shutter camera. The way you used to take pictures is this, you look through the finder, focus with the apeture wide open, then you stop down till the meter said proper exposure was met, then you took your picture.
The problem is this, when you stop down, the image got grainy and crappy through the finder. so if somethign changes, its harder to see, especially in lower light conditions.
CAnon because of its new auto feature, ment that the exposure and iris settings coulbe made instantly. so the iris was able to stay open all the time and only needed to be closed when the photo was being taken. Thus the camera had to controll the iris. what this means is that theactuation has to be internal, and delicate, so a weak motor can activate it.
so canon kinda removed the control form you, though with the flick of a switch on the back, its again useable like a manual lens. However some of the cheaper lenses. Forgo that feature to save money. however you can get around it with the "qtip" hack. where you stick a piece of qtip rod into the slot to keep the switch engaged.
i will direct you to this thread, but i HIGHLY HIGHLY reccomend you do this at your own discretion. I prefer not to use it, and just utilize a higher quality lens.
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?p=1016013#post1016013
Canon, in the 60's and 70's was an up and coming SLR Film camera maker. Their main rival was of course, Nikon the professional standard, but also Pentax, Yaschica/Contax ( Zeiss), Leica etc.... mostly familiar names.
Canon always interested in leading technology, descided to make one of the first, if not the first, Automatic exposure/shutter camera. The way you used to take pictures is this, you look through the finder, focus with the apeture wide open, then you stop down till the meter said proper exposure was met, then you took your picture.
The problem is this, when you stop down, the image got grainy and crappy through the finder. so if somethign changes, its harder to see, especially in lower light conditions.
CAnon because of its new auto feature, ment that the exposure and iris settings coulbe made instantly. so the iris was able to stay open all the time and only needed to be closed when the photo was being taken. Thus the camera had to controll the iris. what this means is that theactuation has to be internal, and delicate, so a weak motor can activate it.
so canon kinda removed the control form you, though with the flick of a switch on the back, its again useable like a manual lens. However some of the cheaper lenses. Forgo that feature to save money. however you can get around it with the "qtip" hack. where you stick a piece of qtip rod into the slot to keep the switch engaged.
i will direct you to this thread, but i HIGHLY HIGHLY reccomend you do this at your own discretion. I prefer not to use it, and just utilize a higher quality lens.
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?p=1016013#post1016013