The CANON FD60
So this idea came about some time ago, probably discussed on a forum on photo.net or the like, or maybe a product of my own determination and idiocy.

So You Want Proof?
Image samples are now available here and here. The first set is from our amazing winter ice storm; the second is from a daytrip to NYC. Both include reduced res full frames, and 1:1 samples for scrutiny.

RESEARCH
The decision was made: I was going to try to mount older FD lenses to something digital. Why not? It seemed wasteful to have these perfectly wonderful cameras, mine being an AE-1, become unloved and unwanted due to their vintage or technological system.

Logically, it's hard to make a "digital back" to attach to a 35mm camera, but it probably won't stop me from trying at a later date. So if the lenses are still out there in plentiful abundance, why not make use of them? Bodies come and go, but lenses hold their value.

Nikon? Pentax? Olympus, Minolta, Sony, Fuji? The decision was made to stick with brand loyalty. What would people say, a Canon lens on a Nikon body? The horror! Next choice was to find an older body that would take an adequate photo, allow for RAW capture, and permit override on the aperture. I examined costs of Digital Rebel (300D), 10D, Rebel Xt, and the first flagship models Canon offered, the D30 and D60. The D30 was the cheapest, as it was one of the earliest models offered, but at 3 megapixels, the image quality would be too low to be worth the effort. For about $230, I found a fairly-used D60 from KEH.com. At 6mp with RAW capability and a sturdy body, it had potential.

A donor camera was provided by a coworker in an AE-1P. With extremely squealy shutter curtains and some other fishy issues, it peacefully submitted itself to mad science. Lenses were available, since I was already an AE-1 owner, so that was also easy. The hard part was doing math.

IT NEVER STOOD A CHANCE
The whole idea was to talk to Dad about the project, the intentions, clearances, concerns, and what would be involved. What ended up happening instead was that we just chopped the little fellow up, because there was no real other way to find out if it would work without fully dismantling the whole camera. The precaution was so if the project didn't seem feasible, I'd reassemble it and sell the camera to my roommate for same cost, and he could use it as a normal old-school DSLR. Once we started cutting though, there was no turning back: it HAD to work.

The biggest problem, overall, with this project was a simple matter of clearances. When you focus your camera, you maneuver glass in the lens away from the film plane, or sensor plane, in this case. On older, simpler lenses with minimal elements, to focus closer, you moved the glass away from the film. If you've ever used a macro lens, it operates on that same idea, moving the elements further away from the body, and bringing closer subjects into focus. How does this relate to our problem, and likewise with the use of lens adapters available on eBay?

If we just glued an FD mount on to the EOS ring, the lenses would be too far away from the film/sensor plane. Canon designed their old lenses to mount about 42mm away from the film plane, whereas their new lenses mount around 44mm from the plane. This means the lenses would never focus at infinity -- everything would focus too close, same as with ring adapters available online.

This relates directly to the second problem, which is the mounting method. Old FD mounts protruded into the lens itself, whereas the current EF lens protrudes into the body. This means the actual mount for the FD ring needs to recess further into the body than the current EF ring does. We didn't exactly figure this out until we started to measure how much to mill off of the D60, and when we figured it out, our hearts dropped a little. This is one of those cases where measuring twice and cutting once definitely paid off.

Now's a great time to take a break if you feel like your head is going to explode... I'll make some illustrations and some warm tea by the time you get back.

CUT IT OUT!
Dad has a machine shop. Somehow he got into this about 15 years ago I think, and digs it a lot, kind of how I like older cameras and respect that slightly older technology. Some of the projects I work on, such as my Polaroid Joycams, I edit with a Dremel, because it's accurate enough for a camera made out of plastic and jellybeans. This project though, I wanted accuracy, because it was imperative to the success of the end result (if we were so lucky).

So I called upon Dad, and we bolted the poor little D60 down to a bed, and christened Dad's New Old Milling Machine. Due to the shape of the camera, leveling was a little haphazard, and I'm pretty sure I saw the camera moving during milling. Next time I'll build a better clamping method for the camera body.

We did the measurements, and started cutting. I can't tell you exactly how much we decided to cut off from the front-most point of the original mounting area, approximately .215 inches I think. We also originally only cut off enough ring to support the base of the FD mounting ring, but this proved to be silly, since the FD lenses are larger than the base of the ring. In the end, all of the ring area was cut off for clearance purposes.

There were two or three scares. Near the top of the mounting area, there are three LEDs glued in place, along with a plastic mounting bracket, I think for illuminating the auto-focus spots on the focus screen. The adhesive used is white and gooey however, so the appearance of such threw us for a loop, but no sweat. Another case was when we discovered a spring along the mounting body near the grip. I think it's a mirror-return spring, and we thought we lost it for a moment, but it's still in place and happy enough. The third big one was that on the right-hand side (facing the front of the body), there is a circuit-board mounted against the walls of the mirror housing. I don't think I caught any with the miller, but definitely scraped a bit finishing up with the Dremel afterwards. Click the pic for clarity on these problem spots.

Click here for more information after two months+ of use with this amazing monstrosity... if you dare...