CANON SLRs of the 1970's

(c) Frank Mechelhoff                NEW Aug. 2022                German Version      

The Canon EF (1973-1978)

Canon EF is normally known as an SLR lens bayonet mount capable of Autofocus, which have started in 1987 with the EOS cameras. Previously it was the name of a semiprofessional SLR camera, launched in Nov. 1973 and sold for five years. Initial price was 89,500 yen w. FD 50/1.4 lens; 1978 at Sears catalog USA $459.99, in Germany 1200 DM, so it was on the more expensive side of SLR offerings. The EF camera can't be used with EF-lenses, because in it's days it used FD-mount, an outer bayonet which was offered by Canon between 1971 and 1990, and to which the EF mount isn't compatible at all.



Canon EF was the first Automatic Exposure (AE) SLR camera offered by CANON, using shutter speed priority AE-mode, mostly abbreviated as S ("shutter"), AE-S or Tv ("time value"). ¹⁾ It incorporates an eletromechanical controlled, vertical travel metal shutter of the type COPAL Square. This was the first time CANON used a shutter of non-own production as well as vertical travelling. Later COPAL shutters became very common in SLRs. A silicon photocell, also quite new, faster and more responsive (EV -2 to 18) than previuosly used CdS-cells, was used for full-aperture center-weighted averaging metering with all FD lenses. Fast shutter speeds from 1/2 sec. to 1/1000 sec. and bulb were mechanically-controlled, while slow speeds from 1 sec. to 30 sec. were electronically-controlled. So the EF can be used without batteries with most common shutter speeds in manual mode. AE functions naturally requiring batteries (2x PX625/old Mercury cells or V625U/new with no concern about accuracy).
It has a big metering switch level right of the finder window, so be sure not to forget to turn if off after usage, or your battery will deplete. Moreover it has a nice big shutter speed dial which protudes the fore camera edge, alike the Leica M5 before, or later on Nikon FG, with the shutter button in the center.
It also has a mirror lock.

The camera body based on the large F-1 chassis, but didn't support a motordrive. It's a large and heavy camera (151x96x48mm and 740g) but handles very well.

EF use with lenses

For AE function, simply turn the aperture ring on any FD lens to the green o or A.
Earlier lenses (FL-mount) will work with stop-down-metering but not AE.The original FD lenses, introduced in 1971 (as well as their predeccessors FL-mount/1964 and R-mount/1959) do not rotate in the when attached to the camera; instead, a locking ring at the base is turned to fix the lens. This was often criticized as being slower than bayonet mounts of competing camera makers. The counter argument, though, was that since the lens/body mating surfaces did not rotate, there was also no wear that could affect the critical distance from lens to film plane. I personally like this "old" system much better than newFD which replaced it after 20 years in 1979.


A very nice (yet un-illuminated) viewfinder information with meter needle, providing the aperture range of the lens actual attached, but it has no info (follower needle or warning) when aperture is set manually (lack of lens aperture feedback). The field of view is 92-93% at 0.82x magnification with a 50mm lens.
Serial numbers seem to start with 100,000 and end about 424,000, estimated around 250,000 cameras made, a quite successfull run, but quite low when compared with the AE-1.

ir new "Semi-Pro" model A-1 was launched, April 1978, but sales had faded since start of the feature-rich middleclass camera AE-1 in 1976.

Overall subsumption of the EF

Chome nose FD lenses (Nov. 1971-1973)

• Canon FD 24 mm 1:2.8
• Canon FD 28 mm 1:3.5
• Canon FD 35 mm 1:2  (Concave)
  
• Canon FD 35 mm 1:3.5
• Canon FD 50 mm 1:1.4
• Canon FD 50 mm 1:1.8
• Canon FD 55 mm 1:1.2
• Canon FD 55 mm 1:1.2 AL
• Canon FD 100 mm 1:2.8
• Canon FD 135 mm 1:3.5

CANON AE-1 (Apr. 1976-1984)

. With its classical size and outlook, neither too big, nor too small, the AE-1 was exactly what most people asked for.
 

In order to keep production costs low, Canon designed the AE-1 to use a significant amount of structural plastic for a lighter and cheaper camera. Canon went to great effort to disguise the use of ABS plastic (injection-molded acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene) for the top panel finished with either satin chrome (or black enameled) to give the look and feel of metal. The bottom plate were made of metal. Extensive use of electronics also allowed simpler modular internal construction instead of mechanical linkages. Five major and 25 minor internal modules reduced the individual parts count by over 300. Modular construction, in turn, allowed automated production lines to reduce cost. Cost concerns also resulted in the use of plastic in some of the moving/operating mechanisms. Since cost of labor increased in 1970's Japan, there was no other way to sell cameras at previous price level, and the saturated SLR market demanded Automatic Exposure and electric film winder capability for the same price as former manually set cameras.

So CANON consequently developed most of their SLR offerings around this successfull model (like Pentax did it with their ME):

• AT-1 (1976) and AV-1 (1979) were econmy models, about 1/3 cheaper than the AE-1 and providing less finder informations.
• A-1 (1978) was the high middleclass (not really a Semi-Pro) model (DM 723,- in 1980) based on the same body, with manual, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, and full Program mode - and a great stylish 7-segment digit display
  
• AE-1 Program came out in April 1981, adding combined aperture and shutter speed priority AE and replaced the AE-1 in long-term view. Sadly the  big shutter speed dial of the AE-1 was omitted here.
  
• AL-1 (1982), an interesting camera based on the AT-1 with focus indicators added, so it was important for development of Autofocus with Canon, similar to the Pentax ME F, which already had Autofocus when connected to a special lens.
  

AE-1 Finder informations

Oberall subsumption of the AE-1