Canonized

A few years ago, I picked up a Canon EX EE, which was a strange SLR, to say the least. Other than shooting with a Canon T70 for a month, and borrowing a Canon Rebel 35mm SLR and using (for years) a Canon Canonet 17, that was the extent of my film shooting with Canon cameras. Although I have managed to acquire and use a number of SLR systems, Canon has not bee one of them until very recently. A week ago, I picked up a Canon FTBn from a fellow A3C3 member, Kevin Mount, for $30, which included the 50mm 1.8 Canon lens. I put in a couple of Zinc-air cells and the meter immediately sprang to life. The camera is rock-solid, much like a Nikon Nikkormat from the early 1970s. I took it out to shoot with on the next day with, bringing it along on a UM Art Museum trip with some fellow A3C3 photographers.



To like:
Match-needle metering
build quality
breech-lock lens mount system
used lenses are pretty cheap
Canon's hi-quality optics
DOF Preview and mirror lock-up
straightforward manual camera design

To not like:
use of PX-627 batteries (Mercury) requires a work-around today
lens controls backwards from Nikon (of course, non-Nikon users will say otherwise)
sometimes odd filter ring of 48mm

The quality of the images I got back were very good, as the 50mm 1.8 is a seriously nice lens. I can see why these older Canons appeal to many photographers, and I now have a camera bag with some lenses to make up a nice kit for future outings.