The Canon 135 mm f/3.5 Spectra Coated FD mount lens is a four-element design that weighs around a pound. The lens can focus to slightly under 4.6 ft (1.4 m). It stops down to f/22. This one came with the BT-55 Canon hood, a Black’s Camera Store 81A (slight warming) 55 mm filter and a front lens cap.
I was pretty proud of myself. I had scoured many thrift stores and was getting pretty tired of nothing available. Then I found this thrift store had a showcase with two shelves of camera equipment that ran all the way from Polaroid to an ancient Kodak folder. As I ran through the stuff—with the help of a very patient clerk—I was beginning to lose hope as the stuff was;
too expensive or
really beat up or
something I had or
something I didn’t want
So when I found this lens for just $10 I was thrilled, until I got it home and tried to mount it to a camera. For those who haven’t tried mounting a Canon Breech mount lens you place the lens against the front of the camera and then use a ring to tighten the two together. It is a brilliant design because there isn’t any wear to the mounting surfaces as then are pulled together. All the wear is taken out by the cam action of the ring’s sloped mounting wedges being forced into wedges that are built into the camera’s mount.
A little known fact is genuine Canon breech mount rings actually start tightening themselves as soon as the lens is pressed into the camera mount. It is spring loaded! Most aftermarket lenses from other manufacturers did not have this self-starting feature.
So imagine my feelings when I found not only did the ring not start itself, I couldn’t get the lens and camera to bed together tightly.
I looked at the lens’s cutouts and one seemed distorted. It seems this lens had been dropped hard enough to dimple in the ring.
So I tried to take the ring off and found the only two screws that I could find were glued into the ring. I have read of ways this is handled—high heat to soften the glue they use, or solvent—but by the time I realized the second screw’s glue wasn’t going to give way I had stripped the screw’s head.
In desperation I tried various levers to straighten out various problems and all that achieved was burred edges and distorted metal that hadn’t been distorted before.
I also found the lens has a small metal latch that has to be depressed to set off the self-tightening action. That latch is slightly out of position so it doesn’t always work.
Now the lens is pretty well wrecked. Even if by some miracle I got it mounted I doubt the bent metal would allow the levers to move.
Further research indicates the entire mount can be removed, but it involves three other screws that play peak-a-view with you. One can be removed with the lens in unmounted condition and two have to be removed in mounted condition. All this sounds pretty cryptic without illustrations, but suffice to say, what I saw of the removed mount makes it very unlikely I could improve its action.
The lens seems to have some marks on its rear element.
RATS—collecting is not always a victimless crime.
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