I'm a Nikon user, but I'm intrigued by some of the exotic lenses available in the Canon FD mount for reasonable prices on the used market. I wear eyeglasses, so I'm wondering if any of the FD bodies compare favorably to the high-eyepoint Nikon finders, and if so, which FD bodies I should consider.

-- Chris Paris (cap@cmu.edu), May 19, 1999

Answers

I'm no FD expert, so I can't be sure. If there is one, it would probably be the F1 with a special high eyepoint finder, but I'm not sure if such a beast exists or not. If you don't get a better answer than this here, try the Canon FD forum which is also on the www.greenspun.com server.

For what it is worth, I never had any problem with my AE-1 when I had it, but I don't wear glasses either. I did find the eyecup to be much more comfortable for me than the one on my Elan IIe though.

-- Brad (bhutcheson@iname.com), May 19, 1999.

Chris,

I wear glasses and use an F-1, A-1, and T-90 (all Canon FD cameras). I have no trouble with any of them. The F-1 has nice rubber ring to keep your glasses from coming in contact with metal. The A-1 has an eyecup that I hate. You can't easily open and close the back with it on. I plan on modifying one to make it smaller and see how it works. The T-90 eyecup is very nice, BUT just about impossible to find. So hard I seriously considered buying a body just for the eyecup and selling the body. :)

The F-1 also has an replacement finder called a Speed Finder. This gives you a very high viewfinder with longer eye relief. It also swivels to act as a semi waist level finder. Very nice. Do realise that there are two different F-1 bodies, the old and the new. Actually the old F-1 is two models, but all the accessories work on both. You have to match the Speed Finder to the body, if you get an old F-1 you get the one for that, new F-1 the finder for it.

-- Terry Carraway (TCarraway@compuserve.com), June 16, 1999.

Second the suggestion of the F-1 with SpeedFinder. That's what I use exclusively. (It's *the* reason I haven't gone autofocus.)

Unless your glasses are 10" thick, you can use that viewfinder. And, no, I'm not exaggerating or a typo: 10 inches. the finder was designed for use with helmets, goggles, and what-not; eyeglasses are trivial.

Now, at a foot away, you won't see the whole frame, and it's tricky to focus, but at 1-3 inches it's a piece of cake.

-- Kevin Connery (connery@keradwc.com), July 03, 1999.