I had my A1 for over 10 years, love it. I blamed myself for selling my 50mm and 100mm 10 years ago. Now I want to buy a 85mm or may be a 100mm. Anyone knows if any place sells brand new FD lens?

-- Steve Tong (mmtong@yahoo.com), August 24, 2001

Answers

Since they haven't been made for a decade or more, luck is your only ally. You sometimes see "new old stock" FD stuff being auctioned by the stores that sell on Ebay. Non-auction, try KEH (www.keh.com) and look for items that they grade LN or LN-, these may be new in the box or (LN-) new lenses that sat in a display case until someone lost the box.

-- Alan Davenport (w7apd@home.com), August 25, 2001.

Steve, if you're careful and persistent, you can find used lenses that are indistinguishable from new. Just ask plenty of questions and look at quality images of the item.

Some months ago, B & H in New York still listed a few new FD lenses. The prices were very, very high.

-- Alan Swartz (swartz@tyler.net), August 25, 2001.

Steve,

Are you looking for new CANON FD lenses or new lenses for Canon FD that are made by other mfgrs?

A few mfgrs still make or have stock of Canon FD. B&H [ www.bhphoto.com ] lists offerings by Tamron and Tokina, among others.

There's plenty of used stuff that will work just as fine--both Canon and non-Canon. The Vivitar Series 1 70-210 f3.5 is a prime example of this--I'm not sure if any zoom eclipses its performance, not to mention it's availability at $75. eBay can be a good source. In the past I've been happy with purchases from from Northwest Collector Camera [ nwcollectorcamera.com ].

FWIW, I have a Tamron 35-80mm f2.8-3.8 SP-series lens that's excellent. I also have the aforementioned Vivitar. Do some searching on the net and you'll find out what models are junk and what models are highly rated.

-- Joshua Martin (josh_mar10@yahoo.com), August 25, 2001.

There's a place in Singapore that evidently still has some brand new FD lenses. In the UK Ffordes Photographic deals with them. Details on their web site at www.ffordes.com. They tell me they can get brand new FD 500mm f4.5L's for example.

-- Steve Phillipps (steve@redvixen.freeserve.co.uk), January 09, 2002.