Canon lenses and lens mounts - from the R to the FDn
From the late 1950's onwards 35mm SLR cameras started to become increasingly popular among photographers. The convenience of the pentaprism viewfinder and the versatility offered by exchangeable lenses were two important factors in their widespread acceptance. When promoting their cameras, manufacturers were always ardent to point to the range of accessories and lenses offered as a means to extended the camera's usefulness. Canon has established itself as a company with one of the largest selection of lenses of various types and focal lengths.
As SLR technology evolved over the years, manufacturers repeatedly faced the problem of wanting to add new features while keeping the interface between camera and lens backwards compatible. This has been an increasingly difficult exercise and some companies were better at it than others. When auto-focus arrived, nearly everyone, including Canon, threw in the towel and developed a brand new lens mount. Various levels of compatibility do exist and there are also adapters, but most AF lens mounts are essentially a new design.
Read about the evolution of Canon lens mounts from the R up to, but not including, the EOS.
Fungus, separation and other problems with camera lenses
Time and neglect has taken its toll on many of the lenses we acquire today on the second hand market. This post describes the most common problems encountered and helps identify them.
Various manual focus lenses
Recently I took upon myself the not altogether easy task of documenting my film camera lenses; painstakingly collecting the specifications, saving them into a database, and designing and creating a series of PDF documents where each page describes a lens. See here how this work progresses.
