Quarks rating explanation here.
Background
This post is a complement to one I wrote some time ago about the Commlite adapter for Canon FE lenses. So, I won’t delve into too much technical detail here.
This adapter is for Canon FD lenses, which is Canon’s previous generation mount to the Canon FE. Per my (very quick) research, these lenses were built up until the late 80’s, but you can still find them used on eBay and even on AmazonAmazon. FD lenses are manual lenses, so settings such as aperture and focus are adjusted on the lens itself and not on the camera. Although they lack all the bells and whistles newer lenses have (electronic control, image stabilization, auto focus, etc.), many of them were provided with excellent optics and are capable of producing outstanding images at a fraction of the price of their newer counterparts.
Hardware Design
It’s got a simple and yet effective design: one end attaches to the camera and the other to the lens. Both ends have white and red dots to help aligning the adapter. There is no intermediate lens or glass that would degrade image quality.
As indicated above, since FD lenses are manual, there is no need for electronic pins in the adapter to pass EXIF information to the camera. Therefore, there are no electronic components like in other types of adapters, so it is effectively a purely mechanical device.
Hardware Quality and General Performance
Quality is where this adapter excels. You can find other adapters online that can do pretty much the same thing this one does, for half the price. However, those are made of plastic and the way some of them attach to the camera or lens can be questionable.
The Fotodiox adapter is made of metal. It feels sturdy and attaches securely both to the camera and to the lens. Threads in both sides are perfectly milled, I couldn’t find any flaws from a quality perspective.
Price
The Fotodiox adapter is around $25 on Amazon by the time of this writing, which is a good price for this piece of hardware. You could spend less than that if you go with one of the plastic options. It just doesn’t feel right to me to have a piece of plastic keeping keeping a nice lens attached to my camera.
What Others Are Saying
As part of the Quarks Rating System, I include ratings from other reputable websites such as Newegg and Amazon in order to provide a more objective rating scale (more information here). This adapter has not been rated (yet) in Newegg, but it has a 4.3 star (95 reviews) rating on Amazon at the time of this writing.