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

FD 85mm f/1.8

Canon · Canon FD · 1974 · Double Gauss derivative, 6 elements in 4 groups

via machine translation — corrections welcome

Also known as: Canon FD 85mm f/1.8 · Canon FD 85mm 1:1.8 · Canon Lens FD 85mm 1:1.8 · FD 85mm f1.8 · FD 85/1.8 · Canon 85mm f/1.8 FD · キヤノン FD 85mm F1.8 · キャノン NewFD 85mm F1.8

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
FD 85mm f/1.8 S.S.C., breech-lock (1974) Canon FD 1974–1979 — —
New FD 85mm f/1.8, bayonet (1979) Canon FD 1979 — —
  1. Launch date of the breech-lock lens. The Canon Camera Museum marks it April 1974, and Canon Classics gives 1974; Wikipedia's FD lens mount table gives January 1976. The museum's date is used. mir.com.my's early-FD page carries the same specifications without a date.
  2. End dates. The museum gives marketing months only. The 1979 close of the breech-lock lens is the month the New FD lens was marketed, not a published discontinuation, and no end date for the New FD lens has been found.
  3. No chrome nose. The museum's FD list has one breech-lock 85mm f/1.8, the S.S.C. of 1974, and no 1971 lens with a chrome filter ring. A chrome-front 85mm f/1.8 offered as an FD lens is the FL 85mm f/1.8, which fits FD bodies but is a different line and is excluded from this page's listings.
  4. Specifications in the table are the museum's for the 1974 lens. The New FD differs in filter (52mm), minimum aperture (f/22), close focus (0.85m), size (63 x 53.5mm) and weight (345g), as the variant rows say. mir.com.my adds the hoods, BT-55 and BT-52, and the case LHC10 for the older lens.
  5. Prices are the museum's yen list prices, 44,000 in April 1974 and 43,000 in June 1979. No dollar list price has been found.
  6. The Aperture One review does not say which version it covers; its description of a metal mount in a plastic and metal housing fits the New FD lens, and it is filed under that reading.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Mount and filter size settle it: a knurled chrome breech ring and a 55mm thread is the 1974 lens, a fixed rear with a square release button and a 52mm thread is the New FD.
  • The aperture ring reads to f/16 on the breech-lock and to f/22 on the New FD
  • Six elements in four groups and eight blades on both

FD 85mm f/1.8 S.S.C., breech-lock (1974):

  • Breech-lock mount with the knurled chrome locking ring; S.S.C. in red on the name ring; black filter ring and chrome lock button on the aperture ring
  • 55mm filter thread; f/16 minimum aperture; 0.9m close focus
  • 425g and 67mm across, 57mm long; hood BT-55

New FD 85mm f/1.8, bayonet (1979):

  • New FD bayonet: fixed rear with a square chrome release button, no breech ring; no coating engraved
  • 52mm filter thread where the breech-lock takes 55mm; stops down to f/22 where the older lens stops at f/16
  • 0.85m close focus; 345g, 80g lighter, and 63mm across, 53.5mm long; hood BT-52

Serial-range notes

the date code on the rear plate, a letter and three or four digits
Canon FD lenses are dated by the code stamped on the rear plate. In the format used until 1986 the letter is the year (A = 1960, so O = 1974, T = 1979, U = 1980, Z = 1985), the first digit or two the month, the last two digits of unknown purpose. Alan Watson Forster cautions that the code may record inspection rather than assembly.
any serial
No serial ranges or production totals for either version have been published in the sources consulted.

Specifications

Formula
Double Gauss derivative, 6 elements in 4 groups
Construction
6 elements / 4 groups
Aperture range
f/1.8–f/16
Diaphragm blades
8
Min. focus
0.9 m
Dimensions
67 × 57 mm
Weight
425 g
Filter
55 mm
Years manufactured
1974
Country
Japan
Coating
S.S.C. (Super Spectra Coating) multilayer, engraved on the 1974 lens; unmarked on the New FD
Original price
¥44,000 (S.S.C., April 1974); ¥43,000 (New FD, June 1979) (today ¥100,000)

What reviewers say

Optical Ratings

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

Chromatic aberration
noticeable wide open
Spherical aberration
haze at f/1.8

History

The FD 85mm f/1.8 is the ordinary short telephoto of the FD system, the lens most Canon photographers bought for portraits when the f/1.2 Aspherical cost two and a half times as much. It arrived later than the rest of the first FD range: the Canon Camera Museum marks the FD 85mm f/1.8 S.S.C. as marketed in April 1974 at 44,000 yen, and lists no earlier FD version, so there is no chrome-nose 85mm f/1.8 to look for. Canon’s 85mm f/1.8 before it was an FL lens, which mounts on FD bodies but belongs to the older line. Six elements in four groups, eight blades, 55mm filters, a 0.9m close focus and 425g; the museum’s note says the design set out to eliminate astigmatism and coma across the whole frame so that the blur at full aperture would be good, which is a modest claim by Canon’s standards and one that reviewers broadly bear out.

The New FD 85mm f/1.8 followed in June 1979 at 43,000 yen. The optics stayed at six elements in four groups, and everything around them changed: the bayonet mount with its square release button in place of the breech ring, no coating engraved, a 52mm thread instead of 55mm, an aperture ring reaching f/22 instead of f/16, close focus of 0.85m and, at 345g, a lens 80g lighter and 3.5mm shorter. The hoods differ with the threads, BT-55 and BT-52. A date code on the rear plate places either lens to the month: a letter for the year, O for 1974, T for 1979, then the month digits. No serial tables exist for either.

Wikipedia’s table dates the breech-lock lens to January 1976, which conflicts with the museum’s April 1974 and Canon Classics’ 1974; the museum is Canon’s own record and its date is used here. The two barrels can be sorted without reading anything: the breech ring and the 55mm thread are the 1974 lens, the fixed rear and the 52mm thread the New FD.

On performance the reviewers agree more than they differ. Wide open the lens is hazy or soft, with lateral colour fringing that turns green and yellow in backlit scenes; the MFlenses thread finds the breech-lock lens clearing by f/2.3 and razor sharp in the centre by f/2.8, Canon Classics’ contributors put the cure at f/2.2, and on the New FD both Canon Classics and R. Birkensleigh have the edges soft until about f/5.6. Jeroen ter Lingen, testing the New FD f/1.8 against the New FD f/1.2 L, found it never quite as sharp as the L at any aperture but close by f/5.6 to f/8, with bokeh rounder than the L’s from f/2.8 on and none of the L’s onion rings, at half the weight. The blur is the lens’s quiet virtue: smooth, rounded from the eight blades, three-dimensional rather than washed out, which is what Canon said it was designed for.

For a buyer the breech-lock lens is the one to prefer for build, all metal, and the New FD for weight and the extra stop of minimum aperture; the older lens tends to cost a little more. Check the breech ring turns and locks freely on the 1974 lens, and on the New FD that the mount rotates and the release button returns without slop, that the aperture blades are dry and that the front group is clear, since neither version is reported to use thoriated glass and any yellowing is haze or balsam rather than thorium.

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 85mm f/1.8
FD 85mm f/1.8 S.S.C., the 1974 breech-lock lens, in a focus-stacked product photograph by s58y — s58y, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
Sample photo taken with the FD 85mm f/1.8
A Canon FD 85mm f/1.8 photographed by Denis Barthel; the file does not say which version — Denis Barthel, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Sample photo taken with the FD 85mm f/1.8
Shot wide open on a Canon FD 85mm f/1.8 (Edvvc) — Edvvc, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Sample photo wanted — shot with a FD 85mm f/1.8? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $300 across 44 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-18 (middle half $230–$350). First day tracked.

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

Show 113 more listings

Buying from Yahoo! Auctions outside Japan. It is a domestic marketplace: sellers ship within Japan, and most will not register an overseas buyer. A proxy service bids on your behalf, receives the item and forwards it, for a fee and a wait. Buyee, Jauce and ZenMarket each accept a Yahoo auction number directly. Listed alphabetically for information — none is recommended over another, and none of these is an affiliate link.

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

Related: FD 100mm f/2 · FD 135mm f/2 · FD 200mm f/2.8 · FD 50mm f/1.4 · FD 50mm f/1.8 · FD 85mm f/1.2 Aspherical / L

Sources (9)

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.