Quality of Product Design

A quality product undergoes a tremendous amount of scrutiny in research, design, and testing, before it's released to the market. A new product that can't past the obvious test shows how poorly its research was before the design took place. Case in point, no-name FD-NEX adapter.

For most users, this adapter will work perfectly (not talking about the precision here, just functionality.) In fact, it works with all the New FD, FD, and most, but not all FL lenses. An example is the Canon FL 35mm f2.5. The rear of this lens has a raised portion on one side, where the aperture lever is located. See picture below:

Unusual design - half of the rear is raised. Click for larger.

The problem? The aperture arresting pin on the adapter is set about 1.5mm too low; the pin is resting on the raised portion of the lens and prevents the adapter from mating to the lens. You can see the aperture lever on the lens is at least 2mm taller than the pin on the adapter, so there is room for it to go higher. See picture below:

Pin resting on the mount - Click for larger.

I have another FD-M4/3 adapter and it doesn't have this problem. Clearly, one adapter maker did more extensive research than the other. It's a shame. The FL 35mm f2.5 is a nice lens, and I can't use it on the NEX-6, at least not until I get an adapter that can mount it properly.

Good looking lens. Click for larger.

Don River and DVP at night - NEX-6 & Canon FD 20mm f2.8. Click for larger.

Give an Old Adapter New Life

If you are like me, who collects all sorts of junk related to photography, you will no doubt end up with many weird and potentially useless stuff.  Case in point, M42 to Canon FD adapters.  I have a few of these, and couple of them were actually made by Canon!  But, I no longer shoot film, and I don't have any Canon FD bodies, so these adapters have been sitting around collecting dust, until I got my FD-NEX adapter.

Basically, you can combine the FD-NEX adapter and the FD-M42 adapter and use M42 lenses on the NEX without having to buy a dedicated M42-NEX adapter.  Admittedly, an M42-NEX adapter is not that expensive, but why not make use of what you have?  Even though I don't like multiple adapters, but this combination actually works really well, because breech lock mounts are secured and when mounted, will not have any play at all.  Since my FD-NEX adapter has a very good and tight fit, this combo makes a very nice and solid fit.

Old FD-M42 adapters from eons ago.

FD-NEX & FD to M42 mounts.

Both adapters combined and mounted on the NEX-5.

Sample Photo with both adapters -- NEX-5 & Takumar SMC 85mm f1.8