AE-1 Program

My new (old, but new to me) Canon AE-1 Program arrived today, vintage 1981 or so. This is one of Canon's more famous FD-mount cameras (as opposed to the newer EF EOS cameras) and is a little special because it has the automatic "Program" mode, where the electronics in the camera take care of shutter speed and aperture for you. Remember, we're talking 1981 here.

But, no auto-focus - what you do get is a nice circle on the focus screen with a pattern that will tell you at a glance if you're focussed or not, which is fine by me. The shutter speed only goes to 1/1000, but you can still do plenty with that and I don't really plan on super fast action photography with this thing.

Why _did_ I buy it? I'm going to admit I have a problem with collecting stuff. When I become passionate about something I tend to start collecting... for history's sake, you see. In this case, I'm also hoping to find some nice FD-mount L-series lenses for a reasonable price (although it seems I'm not the only one with this idea). There's also the cool (for me) factor of taking hopefully nice shots with an older camera (although thesedays just shooting film is enough to draw comment).

I will probably buy at least one other FD-mount body (maybe an F1-n, or a T70) but for the moment this is it. I may also acquire a motor-drive base for the AE-1P, although I'm quite happy with the manual wind functionality and I like the compact size of this one with just the 50mm f/1.8.

Anyway, I've loaded up some Neopan 400 and tomorrow I'll go see what jumps in front of the lens. Meanwhile, I just love the shutter "squeak" sound on this thing - it's no soft click, that's for sure!