Today’s Post by Joe Farace
“Black and white photography erases time from the equation.” – Jason Peterson
At the suggestion of my friend Rick Sammon, my first Canon SLR was a used EOS 650 that I bought sometime around 1996. At the time, I was a Contax shooter and later jumped onto the Canon system with an EOS Elan 7E eye-controlled focusing SLR when it was introduced in the heady days of the new millennium. Then, I co-wrote the Magic Lantern Guide to the Elan 7 and 7E. Sometime after that, I picked up an EOS-1 IV that I ended up hardly using because by that time the EOS D30 was announced and everything changed. I was hooked and, for better or worse, dove into digital capture. Flash forward…
Why Film, Why Now?
When I decided to re-jump back into film photography, it was against this history that I decided to get anther Canon EOS-1 film SLR After considering about the size and weight (almost two pounds) of the camera, I changed directions, something that happened a lot during this process. I decided to get a camera I’d always wanted—the legendary Canon F-1. In my on-line searches I found there were two kinds of F-1’s available: Cheap junk or expensive pristine models, especially the Lake Placid version I’ve always lusted after since my Lucy-and-the-Football experience related to photographing the 1980 Winter Games. (That’s a long, sad story and will eventually be the subject of a “Things I Promised Not to Tell” post.) Changing directions again, I started looking for a Canon AE-1 because it was such an iconic model and eventually found a really clean one on eBay in Osaka, Japan. I wrote about the process here. After shooting with the AE-1 for a while I realized that there were six models of A-series cameras and decided if I couldn’t have an F-1, I wanted a Canon A-1. Once again, I found a lovely example in Japan on eBay.
The Canon A-1 is probably the A-series most advanced SLR and was manufactured by Canon Camera in Japan from 1978 to 1985. Mine was built in 1984 and was one of the 2.4 million models produced at the time. The camera has a horizontal cloth-curtain focal-plane shutter with speeds from 30 to 1/1000 sec plus bulb with flash sync at a puny 1/60 sec. that was pretty much typical for that era. Unlike other SLRs of its time, the A-1 was only available in black. The camera was either the first or the first Canon SLR to to offer all four exposure modes: Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, Manual, as well as an electronically controlled Program exposure mode, although switching between modes was not as simple as using the mode dial most of us are familiar with.
The A-1 accepts any lens with Canon’s FD breech lock mount that was introduced in 1971 or Canon’s New FD aka FDn mount, the lenses I much prefer to use, that was introduced 1979. It can also use earlier FL lenses and some even older R or Canomatic series lenses but with reduced functionality. The aspect of owning the A-1 that most appeals to me and exhibits the most charm is that the camera is delightfully analog. There is a knob, button or lever to control each and every function. The stop-down lever atop the camera has a button in the middle for the battery test that when pressed will light an LED next to the shutter release!
How I Made this Photograph: Where did I go to run the first test roll through my Canon A-1? Where else? It was to O”Brien Park in Parker Colorado where one of my first photographs was of, big surprise, the Gazebo! The Fuji Neopan 400 Professional’s low grain and the high quality film scan from The Darkroom are really apparent to me in how this image holds up. It was made with my Canon A-1 with 50mm f/1.8 FDn lens . The exposure was unrecorded.
Do I like this camera?
Let me quote from my film review of Neopan 400 Professional: “I love this camera more than my other A-series Canon SLRs. It has some peculiarities but it’s these eccentricities that endear me to it..” Build quality? I think this 40-year SLR is better made than many of Canon’s modern R-series mirrorless cameras. Back in the day the selling price in the US for an A-1 body was $435 or about $1,466 in today’s dollars. Mine cost $125 (plus shipping) from Japan via eBay and I use it with Canon’s Power Winder A2 that makes a delightfully mechanical sound that reminds me of an air-cooled Porsche engine.
*PostScript. Readers have asked me about what it’s like to purchase a camera from Japan and if I thought it was a good idea. The process can be fun but can be challenging if only because of language and cultural differences between Japan and the US. I created a video on this topic for my YouTube channel—Joe Farace’s Videos—and you can see it here. One thing worth mentioning, as I write this the de minimis threshold for purchases from Japan is $800. This means that shipments valued at $800 or less can enter the US duty-free but even as I write this the whole tarrif situation is not clear and I have been unable to get a definitive answer. Caveat Emptor.