Glass Bodies a variant-level encyclopedia of vintage lenses and cameras by iwillpat

FD 50mm f/1.8

Canon · Canon FD · 1971 · Double Gauss, 6 elements in 4 groups on every version

Known as “Chrome Nose”

Also known as: Canon FD 50mm f/1.8 · FD 50mm 1:1.8 · FD 50mm 1:1.8 S.C. · Canon FD 50mm f/1.8 S.C. · Canon FD 50mm F1.8 SC · New FD 50mm f/1.8 · Canon nFD 50mm f/1.8 · NFD 50mm f/1.8 · キヤノン FD 50mm F1.8 · キヤノン NewFD 50mm F1.8

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
FD 50mm f/1.8 (I and II) — chrome nose, breech-lock Canon FD 1971–1973 — Marketed March 1971 (I) and November 1971 (II), both at 14,800 yen (Canon Camera Museum)
FD 50mm f/1.8 S.C. (I) — black nose, breech-lock Canon FD 1973–1976 — Marketed March 1973 at 16,500 yen (Canon Camera Museum)
FD 50mm f/1.8 S.C. (II) — plastic front barrel, five blades Canon FD 1976–1979 — Marketed March 1976 at 21,000 yen (Canon Camera Museum)
New FD 50mm f/1.8 — bayonet Canon FD 1979 — Marketed June 1979 at 22,000 yen (Canon Camera Museum)
  1. The New FD lens is reported by Kamerastore in "plastic and metal body" forms, and sellers sometimes distinguish a metal-mount and a plastic-mount New FD 50mm f/1.8. Canon's museum lists one New FD lens, at 170 g; mir.com.my, flynngraphics, camera-wiki and Wikipedia likewise describe one. No source consulted gives dates, weights or a serial boundary for two forms, so they are not separated here.
  2. The spec row carries the New FD figures (52 mm filter, f/22, 5 blades, 170 g, 63 x 35 mm), the version made longest and sold most. The breech-lock lenses take a 55 mm filter, stop at f/16 and weigh 200–305 g; the (I), (II) and S.C. (I) have six blades.
  3. All prices are Canon's Japanese list prices from the museum: 14,800 yen (1971, both chrome noses), 16,500 (March 1973), 21,000 (March 1976), 22,000 (June 1979). No US list price was found.
  4. camera-wiki says more of these were sold than any other FD lens, most of them with a camera. It gives no figure and neither does anyone else.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Chrome front ring is 1971–73; black ring with white S.C. is 1973–79 breech-lock; no breech ring and a square release button is New FD, 1979 on
  • Six elements in four groups and a 0.6 m close focus on every version; the count of blades (6 then 5), the weight (305, 255, 200, 170 g) and the filter (55 then 52 mm) are what change
  • S.C. on every version. It is the one FD lens that was never Super Spectra Coated, and the reason the reviewers all complain about flare

FD 50mm f/1.8 (I and II) — chrome nose, breech-lock:

  • Chrome filter ring and hood bayonet; silver breech ring that turns freely off the camera
  • No coating on the name ring; green o on the aperture ring
  • 305 g, 65 x 44.5 mm, 55 mm filter, f/16, 6 blades, 0.6 m
  • The (II) of November 1971 adds a manual lock lever on the back beside the L mark; the (I) of March 1971 has none. Otherwise the same lens
  • Date code on the rear plate begins L (1971), M (1972) or N (1973)

FD 50mm f/1.8 S.C. (I) — black nose, breech-lock:

  • Black filter ring; S.C. engraved in white on the name ring
  • Breech ring latched off the camera; manual lock lever on the back
  • Green o with a silver lock pin on early lenses, green A with a black pin on later ones (flynngraphics)
  • 255 g, 64 x 44.5 mm, 55 mm filter, f/16, 6 blades

FD 50mm f/1.8 S.C. (II) — plastic front barrel, five blades:

  • S.C. on the name ring, green A and a black lock button; no manual lock lever on the back, which is the quick tell against the (I)
  • Five aperture blades instead of six
  • 200 g, 63 x 38.5 mm: 55 g lighter and 6 mm shorter than the (I), with a plastic front barrel (Wikipedia)

New FD 50mm f/1.8 — bayonet:

  • No breech ring; the barrel turns to mount and a square silver release button sits at the base
  • No coating on the name ring. The only New FD lens that kept S.C. rather than S.S.C.
  • 52 mm filter instead of 55, f/22 minimum instead of f/16, 170 g, 63 x 35 mm, 5 blades
  • Largely plastic barrel; Kamerastore lists plastic-bodied and metal-bodied examples, which no reference source consulted separates¹

Serial-range notes

letter plus three or four digits, stamped on the rear plate
No serial ranges are published for the lens, but every FD lens carries a date code on the rear mounting plate. To mid-1986 it is one letter for the year (A = 1960, so L = 1971, N = 1973, Q = 1976, T = 1979) followed by the month as one or two digits and one or two digits of unknown meaning. From August 1986 there are two letters, factory then year (U = Utsunomiya, F = Fukushima, O = Oita; A = 1986 again), then four digits with the month first. It records manufacture or final inspection, not sale.
L codes
A 1971 lens is a chrome nose, and flynngraphics notes the (I) without the lock lever was replaced within the year by the (II) with it, so the earliest L codes are the scarcer (I). Canon's museum dates the (I) to March 1971 and the (II) to November; flynngraphics gives November for both.

Specifications

Formula
Double Gauss, 6 elements in 4 groups on every version
Construction
6 elements / 4 groups
Aperture range
f/1.8–f/22
Diaphragm blades
5
Min. focus
0.6 m
Dimensions
63 × 35 mm
Weight
170 g
Filter
52 mm
Years manufactured
1971
Country
Japan
Coating
S.C. (Spectra Coating) on every version, engraved from March 1973; never S.S.C., even as a New FD
Original price
¥14,800 (1971, chrome nose); ¥22,000 (1979, New FD) (today ¥49,000)

What reviewers say

Optical Ratings

Aggregated from the reviews above — follow the links for the full picture.

Chromatic aberration
lateral well corrected
Vignetting
heavy wide open
Flare & ghosting
poor, S.C. coating
Distortion
very little barrel

History

The FD 50mm f/1.8 is the lens Canon put on the front of its cameras for eighteen years, from the F-1 of March 1971 through the New FD years, and camera-wiki’s judgement that more of them were sold than any other FD lens is hard to argue with even without a number. Six elements in four groups, a double Gauss, 0.6 m close focus: the formula was never touched. What Canon changed, five times, was the barrel around it, and each change made the lens cheaper to build and lighter to carry.

The chrome-nose lens of 1971 weighs 305 g and has a chrome filter ring, a free-spinning silver breech ring, six blades and no coating on the name ring. Canon’s museum lists two of them, a March 1971 lens whose aperture lock works by sliding the auto lever and a November 1971 lens with a clamp lever on the back; flynngraphics says the first was replaced within the year. In March 1973 the front ring went black, S.C. appeared in white on the name ring, the breech ring gained a latch and the weight fell to 255 g. In March 1976 the S.C. (II) dropped to 200 g with a plastic front barrel, five blades in place of six, and no lock lever on the back, which is the fastest way to tell the two S.C. lenses apart. The New FD of June 1979 is 170 g and 35 mm long, takes a 52 mm filter instead of 55, stops down to f/22 instead of f/16, and mounts by turning the whole barrel, with a square silver button at the base to release it. It was the one New FD lens that kept S.C. rather than S.S.C. Sellers sometimes separate a metal-mount and a plastic-mount New FD; Kamerastore lists both, and no reference consulted says when one became the other.

Reviewers agree that it is a stopped-down lens. JuriaanM at phillipreeve.net measured 2.4 stops of vignetting at f/1.8 and a midframe with glow and low contrast, sharp corner to corner only at f/8, and blamed the S.C. coating for large blue and purple ghosts with the sun outside the frame; the bokeh, outlined and fringed at longer distances, was his main complaint. Jim Grey found the colour categorical rather than atmospheric, bold hues vivid and neutrals flat, and the lens at its best in black and white. Nobody argues over the versions: Grey’s advice is to buy whichever one turns up, and the repair blog that took an S.C. (I) apart found it adequately sharp and less saturated than a New FD.

What to check is what the repair blog found: haze on the cemented surfaces and fungus, which made some examples worthless, and a stop-down mechanism that hesitates. A yellow cast on the front element is the coating and not thorium, which this lens never had. On a New FD the release button should spring back and the barrel should lock with a click. Prices ran from 14,800 yen in 1971 to 22,000 yen in 1979, all Canon list prices in Japan; no US price, no production figure and no serial range has been published for any version, though the date code on the rear plate gives the year of manufacture, L for 1971, N for 1973, Q for 1976, T for 1979.

Expand Collapse

This history is AI-written, from the sources listed at the foot of the page. Where the record is silent it says so rather than filling the gap — but no human wrote these sentences.

Example photos

Sample photo taken with the FD 50mm f/1.8
FD 50mm f/1.8 S.C., breech-lock (s58y) — s58y, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
Sample photo taken with the FD 50mm f/1.8
AE-1 with the FD 50mm f/1.8 S.C. (II) (Charles Lanteigne) — Charles Lanteigne, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Sample photo taken with the FD 50mm f/1.8
New FD 50mm f/1.8, weighed at 168 g by the photographer (huzu1959) — huzu1959 from Saitama, Japan, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Sample photo wanted — shot with a FD 50mm f/1.8? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $60 across 49 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-18 (middle half $40–$90). First day tracked.

Asking prices from the listings scanned, not sales; junk-flagged rows and auction lots excluded; other currencies are not converted.

Show 131 more listings

Listings updated 2026-09-18. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Related: FD 50mm f/1.2 / f/1.2 L · FD 50mm f/1.4 · FD 55mm f/1.2 · FD 85mm f/1.8

Sources (17)

Every page here is assembled from public sources, and the gaps are real ones. If you own this lens, know a serial number I'm missing, or can see where I have it wrong, tell me — corrections, serials and sample photos are all worth having.