old lenses on new cameras?

[ubbman]

I'm looking to buy a DSLR in the near future. A friend of mine has an old Canon AE-1 that he bought in the 70's, and a few lenses that he bought in the early-to-mid 80's. If I bought a new Canon DSLR, would these lenses work for the time being? I understand that the quality would be far from ideal, but I figured it would give me a chance to buy the camera sooner and learn a bit before splurging on new lenses. Thanks for any help.

[poker]

You can buy Canon FD lens adaptors for the new Canon EOS bodies. The following thread has some insight on that route:

My FD collection in its heyday...

[J!m]

I have been using my FD lenses on my EOS (film- EOS-1v) bodies with reasonable quality. It actually looks a bit sharper when I was using my old F-1's (particularly the very corners), as the adapter element was not in the light path before.

You do loose a third or half stop (I don't remember which, and it varies with the adapter chosen), so keep that in mind if you meeter off camera. If the internal meeter is used, the camera will compensate automatically.

Also be aware that the adapter does not stop down the lenses at all- you must run full manual exposure / manual lens control, and I'd suggest using spot metering and/or multi-spot averaged metering in camera. DON'T trust the edges of the frame to be exposed perfectly- shoot a bit wide and plan to crop. The adapters are great, but really are just a temporary solution.

The L lenses are still breathtaking, and many of the FD lenses were re-created for the EOS line- proving they 'got it right' the first time...

Best of luck!