Canon 800mm F/5.6 L FD Converted PL Lens Review

[@jeremymolinari6597]

Oh… oh my god. I… Scott, I assumed you were being hyperbolic. I was expecting pretty nature shots and walking away thinking “ah, yes, that is a nice lens”. …. That felt profound. It felt like I was seeing things in a way I’ve never before. The colors, the clarity, the contrast… god that water! AND JUST ON MY PHONE TOO! When I get home this is going on my editing monitor.

[@ScottBalkum]

Thank you! You can watch just the nature short in HDR. I posted it Saturday.

[@preabruthkanhye1728]

This is the Best Footage I've ever watched. Thank you Mr SCOTT & carry on. GOOD LUCK from MAURITIUS.❤❤❤❤

[@angelusbrick917]

I have this lens & I use it on my Sony A7IV FOR VIDEO. It is Fabulous! Great at Yellowstone & Grand Teton.

[@smallrtech]

This is quite cool! Love the footage you got from that old boy, also it's very sharp but has a lot of spherical aberration, i don't know if you closing abit the diaph would help. Also 800 F5.6 for less than 1000 usd is quite cool, so spherical aberration is a nice tradeoff haha.

[@ScottBalkum]

Yea, it cleans up a little at F8 but sometimes you just want that F/5.6 and sometimes, you NEED it :) - I was shooting a lot of slow motion because, everything is just cool with slow motion, except filming paint dry.

[@gaboguerra950]

Very nice!!! Who made the conversion ??

[@pedrova8058]

old big boys (3 2,8; 4 2,8; 5 y 6 f4 and 8 f5,6) from Canon (FD L) and Nikon (Ais ED) are nice glasses, even today. A bunch of video folks are looking for those . Back then , one of those lenses cost the same as their modern counterparts (from 1-2 to 4-6 grands, just in the reach of agencies and pros).

[@larryzapata2614]

I too shed a tear 😢 with how beautiful our natural world 🌎.

[@justinian963]

Did you use it handheld too, or mostly on tripod and gimblehead?

[@ScottBalkum]

Handheld was silly for sure. Way too shaky.

[@justinian963]

@@ScottBalkum I see. I would likely want to use this for birds in flight. What tripod head were you using for it?

[@ScottBalkum]

@@justinian963I used a very heavy duty OConnor 1030

[@matthewgriswold]

I'm a little confused... Is this a prank? The footage looks pretty awful. Not your shots, not your skill, just the image quality. You're shooting on a very expensive modern RED, and you talked about how there's no CA, but then literally your first shot is loaded with CA. Is this just the nature of the lens being like a half a century old? I was really hoping the old 800 5.6 FD would be up to par optically with the later EF version, and maybe not far off from even the new RF, the big trade-off of course being you lose autofocus, IS, and all other bells and whistles. I guess not? Bummer, cus I was looking to buy one of these. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I really thought the images looked poor for what any modern cheap telephoto + that camera should yield. Some shots kind of had this look of like 720p with sharpening applied. 🤷🏻