Vintage Finds: Macro with the Canon FD 50mm f/1.8

The Canon FD 50mm f1.8 is an extremely affordable vintage lens that's easy to find online. It's lightweight and has a simple compact design. It may not be the sharpest lens out there, but it has some unique vintage character to it, especially when shot wide open. The bokeh is quite nice.

I've been using this lens to shoot short films, documentaries, portrait and nature photography for over a decade now. Normally I adapt it to my Sony camera body with a Fotodiox Canon FD to Sony E adapter. This adapter works great for standard lens usage.

But one of the limitations of the Canon FD 50mm f1.8 is its minimum focusing distance. This lens can only focus up to a minimum of 2 feet, which is fine for close up portraits but not for anything closer. As an avid macro shooter, I like to have a macro focusing option in all of my lenses, which is why I also use the Canon FD to Sony E DLX Stretch adapter.

The DLX Stretch adapter has a built-in macro helicoid. Leave the helicoid unengaged and the adapter works just like any other adapter, but turn the helicoid ring and the DLX Stretch extends the adapted lens up to 10 extra millimeters away from the camera's sensor, turning almost any adapted lens into a macro lens.

By adding ten extra millimeters between the Canon FD 50mm f1.8 lens and my Sony camera body, my new minimum focusing distance increases from 2 feet to 281mm or 0.9 feet, and the magnification increases from 0.1X to 0.3X. I can now use this lens to focus much closer on smaller details in my scene.

The great thing about the DLX Stretch is, unlike a macro tube, I don't have to add or remove anything from the lens to go back to infinity focus. I just rotate the macro helicoid back to zero and the adapter returns the lens to standard focusing.

DLX Stretch adapters also come with three magnetic drop-in ND filters so you can add ND filtration behind your adapted lenses, a useful exposure tool, especially for video.

If you've got a favorite vintage lens that you wish could focus closer, DLX Stretch may be the perfect tool for you.