Canon FD 50mm F1.8 S.C.
Sometimes basic really can be beautiful…
Canon FD 50mm F1.8 S.C. on my EOS R @ F1.8
This was a lens that I never really considered I would be writing about. This was one of the firs of two lenses I was gifted on my 16th birthday from my Mother’s trusty Canon AT-1 kit she had used in high-school and college. I do remember enjoying it a lot only my Panasonic GH-1 & GH-2 cameras at the time. It was so nice to have a lens with such a fantastic manual focus ring I thought. But me being me, I quickly decided that F1.8 was not enough and soon upgraded to the Canon FD 50mm F1.4 S.S.C.
This lens just sat in a bag in my closet until recently. Now after weeks of being isolated with the current stay at home orders in the US with not much to do like many others, I decided to throw it on my EOS R and to take it on my usual walk around the neighborhood.
Canon FD 50mm F1.8 S.C. on my EOS R @ F1.8
This is a very tiny very lens. Of course back in the 1970’s when it was released this would have been the kit “starter” lens for most Canon camera kits like the FTb, AE-1, AT-1 to name a few. (long before “kit” zooms were a thing). The lens is very tiny, I have the later 70’s version which uses a bit more plastic therefore it’s even lighter than the first version of the lens. It still feels quite well made though. It has a very simple optical design common for the era: 6 elements in 5 groups. My version is the unofficial “MKII” - introduced in 1976 which has the simplified 5-bladed iris rather than the more desirable 6-bladed iris of the earlier versions. The lens has a rather unremarkable but only slightly worse than average (for a vintage prime) close focus of 2ft or 0.6m.
Being a simple and the most affordable lens in Canon’s FD line-up at the time, the lens is only blessed with the basic “S.C.” coating - aka “Spectra Coating”. This has an effect on its overall contrast specifically when used in bright conditions and it is prone to flaring with point sources within or just outside the frame. i.e. backlight sun
Canon FD 50mm F1.8 S.C. on my EOS R @ F1.8
In term so overall resolution and contrast the lens renders a sharp image in the center of the frame even wide open at F1.8. Corners are noticeably softer wide open but certainly not terrible. Stopping down sharpens things up nicely and by F5.6 it is relatively tack sharp with good overall contrast and resolution from edge to edge. Centering on my copy was good. The lens lacks any of the micro-contrast found in modern lenses meaning that objects in focus don’t have the same “3-D Pop” you usually see with newer glass.
The overall rendering of the lens is quite pleasing. The transitions from in focus sharpness to our of focus blur are relatively smooth overall. There is some minor vignetting wide open at F1.8 as to be expected but its really not that bad considering relatively small diameter of the front element. The lens exhibits some lateral chromatic aberration but not as much as I was expecting for such a basic lens. Longitudinal Chromatic Aberration in the form of Spherochromatism - the magenta/green fringing before and after the plane of focus; is quite minimal which is impressive for such a vintage lens. This lack of LoCA makes for beautiful transitions from in focus to out of focus areas of the image. There is some “busyness” caused by residual spherical aberration in areas just a bit past the points of focus when you have areas of high contrast but the further the backgrounds or foregrounds go out the less of an issue this is. Compared to most modern lenses this lens does have quite a bit of Spherical Aberration but this of course is part of what creates that beautifully vintage look with its blurring of detail at the transitions from in focus to out of focus. Distortion is quite minimal, actually lens than my FD 50mm F1.4 S.S.C. or FD 55mm F1.2 S.S.C. Wide open there is some significant “Cat’s Eyed” effect to the bokeh at the edges of the frame, stopping down a bit helps but, due to the low aperture blade count, stopping down further will quickly introduce the pentagonal shape of the iris in the bokeh which is not very nice. (but definitely quintessentially “vintage”) There is little to no Bokeh fringing thanks to minimal LoCA.
Canon FD 50mm F1.8 S.C. on my EOS R @ F1.8
Overall this lens actually “punches” considerably higher than its $50 price point might suggest. If you are not shooting strongly backlight subjects and don’t mind dealing with a little less contrast wide open this is certainly a nice affordable vintage option. It has a very nice overall rendering with smooth transitions and is able to blur backgrounds and foregrounds quite nicely with minimal distractions in the out of focus zones unless you have lots of contrast just past the plane of focus when it can seem a little “busy”. Overall this little lens impressed me more than I thought it would. To me this lens does have those vintage qualities in its rendering that makes it “special rather than just optically terrible” by modern standards.
