Taking oldies for a walk: Canon AE-1 Programm

After my first rangefinder last time I now present my first (kind of) analog SLR, property of my mother-in-law. It is a Canon AE-1 Programm, one of Canon’s first SLR with the FD mount and automatic light metering through the lens.

The most intriguing thing is its shutter sound. The focal plane shutter emits a squeaking sound each time it is released as it was close to its death. When using it for the first time I feared it will die in my hands but up to today and several dozen rolls of film later it still works accurately and still sounds like a stepped on mouse.

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The lens I use is a Canon FD 50/1.4 I got on ebay for 15 EUR. It is quite worn on the outside, but the glass is still fine. I enjoy its sharpness and honestly prefer it over the new EOS 50/1.4.

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The whole set is quite heavy as most of the camera is made of metal. Its film winder isn’t the most comfortable one, especially when it is used to hold the camera in one hand without any strap like I hold any smaller camera. It can get quite hard to carry it around a whole day. But when it comes to shooting it is well balanced. The viewfinder shows only the set aperture measured by the light meter. The camera uses an automatic program that would be called Tv in a modern EOS, you select the shutter speed, set the lens to auto and adjust the speed to match your preferences, basically as on the canonet.

The microprism screen to focus works well but is not as fast as any good rangefinder, of course. But it works a lot better than any manual focusing on a digital camera.

When taking this one for a walk I spent the day with my girlfriend and her father who came to visit us. So it is mostly random street stuff from around Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg. As I didn’t shoot the whole film that day I also included one photo of Golm. .

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as always you can find more on my flickr.

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