Canon question

[Kjgregor]

I have a Canon ft ql slr manual camera and am thinking of purchasing a canon dslr camera in the future.... My question is can I use the three lenses I have with my manual slr on the dslr camera?

[DrPepperGuy]

Nope. Those lenses have a FL mount. The newer DSLRs have the EF and EF-S mount.

[inkista]

Well... you can, but it's probably not worth it. To be able to focus to infinity, those lenses will need an adapter that acts like a teleconverter, which will rob you of image quality and maximum aperture. Some folks don't mind, but typically, unless it's an L lens, it's not really going to be worth the time and expense to a) find a really good adapter or b) have the mount of the lens converted to fit EOS (you'll still be autofocus-less). For a simple 50/1.8 lens, just buying the EF version is going to be cheaper than hunting down the Canon FD->EOS adapter on the vintage market. And all those <$100 adapters you see don't have terribly good glass in them.

If it's a portrait or macro lens that doesn't need to focus to infinity, you might be able to get away with an adapter ring, but the restrictions on shooting are that you have no autofocus, you have no aperture control from the camera body (i.e., you can only use stop-down metering and only Av or M modes). And manually focusing isn't nearly as easy with a dSLR as it is with a manual-focus camera that gives you a split-circle and prism collar in the viewfinder.

The one digital camera mount that can be easily adapted to FD/FL with simple rings is µ4/3, which has the drawback of sensor that's half the size of a frame of 35mm film, so field-of-view-wise, all your focal lengths just doubled (i.e., it's really really hard to go wide angle on µ4/3).