Hi, my name is Norm. I am a Canon FD/FL user.

("Hi, Norm.")

I just recently purchased a Bellows FL unit. It has the little scale, but no manual. I put it on an FT body, and put an FL 50mm 1.4 lens on it. I understand how to attach the camera, lens, scale. I understand how the aperture works. But I can't seem to get an image in focus. Can someone direct me to a source for instruction with this thing? Does it have to have a macro lens, or will other lenses do? I have several FD lenses, so I would appreciate suggestions of other lenses that would work, or might otherwise be useful.

-- Norman Witte (ncwitte@voyager.net), October 23, 2000

Answers

You shouldn't see any difference between FL and FD lenses on the FL bellows: the only difference was addition of open-aperture metering capability in the FD series.

The image should focus just as it normally does except that you will have to be very close: the farthest that you will be able to focus the 50/1.4 may be something like 4 inches from the glass when it's on the bellows. Longer lenses will allow a little more space.

Another challenge with the bellows will be the depth of field, which is very shallow at these distances and becomes virtually nil at f/1.4. By the time you have enough depth of field to see the image clearly, you're often stopped down so far that the screen is too dark to focus on unless the subject is very brightly lit.

A short-mount bellows lens, or a 100mm or so enlarging lens on an adapter, will allow focusing to infinity - either might be hard to find.

rick :)=

rick_oleson.tripod.com

-- rick oleson (rick_oleson@yahoo.com), October 23, 2000.

Rick,

Thanks for your advice. I tried several lenses -- 50mm, 100 2.8, 200 2.8. I think that the best compromise is the 100mm because it gets you far enough away that you aren't banging the front element of your lens into the subject. I think you are right about the depth of field issue. I am getting a booster for the FT meter which I think will be necessary for accurate stopped down metering. In the long run for good results I will probably have to set up a couple of flashes and use a flash meter.

Thanks again for your help.

-- Norman Witte (ncwitte@voyager.net), October 24, 2000.