In 1969, Apollo 11 and its lunar lander successfully placed humans on the moon for the first time. In the background was an incredible feat of digital engineering called the AGC or Apollo Guidance Computer which navigated both shuttle and lander successfully to the Moon, onto its surface and then back to Earth. The level of engineering involved was actual rocket science. Computers in 1969 filled entire floors of buildings and sucked in so much electricity that energy companies would have to come out and run separate supplies for them to run from. The Apollo 11 engineers managed to squeeze a computer down to the size of a small suitcase, weighing less than a small person, rugged enough to handle a space launch and re-entry to earth and it only consumed 70 watts of electricity. It’s the equivalent of someone taking the engine out of a diesel train and fitting it neatly under the bonnet of a Fiat 500.
What has this got to do with a camera? Nine years later, in 1978, Canon launched the A1 and marketed it as the first camera to use digital processing throughout the entire machine. Putting microchips inside a camera wasn’t an entirely new concept and Canon themselves had begun the process in 1976 with the original AE-1, but this still involved a mix of analogue and digital systems to control the camera and its settings. The advantages of microprocessor technology to a camera manufacturer were numerous – these components were physically tiny, used relatively little power, were not affected by changes in temperature or humidity and allowed more rapid and accurate exposure calculations to be used. Furthermore, they were quite literally cheap as chips. This opened the door to more capable cameras in more compact bodies that were extremely reliable as well as functional.
So, back to the tenuous Apollo 11 link. The AGC aboard Apollo 11 was capable of churning through approximately 40,000 instructions per second. For context, the Apple iPhone 15 CPU can crunch through 3,460,000,000 per second – oh and it has two of them… plus another two capable of two billion instructions per second and it runs all day on a battery. The pace of progress in computing is nothing short of breathtaking, but this rapid evolution is not unique to modern times. It just so happens that the CPU inside the Canon A1 runs at 32,768hz or roughly 33,000 instructions per second. Although neither a direct nor fair comparison, less than ten years since a computer had guided astronauts to the moon and back, the same level of technology had been condensed into chip the size of your fingernail, ran off a battery and lived inside a camera. This was actual “space age” stuff, perhaps that’s why they decided to make it a jet black design.
Regardless, the Canon A-1 is without doubt one of the most superb film cameras ever made. Let’s take a closer look.
In this post:
- History and development
- Prices and purchasing an A-1 today
- A-1 versus 5D
- A-1 or AE-1 Program, which should you buy?
- Conclusions
- References and resources
History and development
Canon released the AE-1 in April of 1979 and, it would be fair to say, changed the game as far as consumer grade SLR’s were concerned. The AE-1 went on to be the worlds best selling SLR (according to Canon) thanks to its price, decent ergonomics, simple controls, shutter priority metering system and access to a decent range of FD lenses.
The AE-1 isn’t a perfect camera by any means, but it is a wonderfully tactile machine which feels robust, is easy to use and was at least a small step forwards in terms of ergonomics compared to previous efforts. I’ve gone over the subtleties of ergonomic design and how much Canon learned from the AE-1 to the later AE-1 Program in my comparison of the two cameras – feel free to take a detour and come back later. What the AE-1 did do, however, was set the stage for total integration of digital control in a camera body and laid the foundations of a solid, reliable core design which could be readily iterated upon.
The service manual for the A-1 clearly outlines their design goals:
Several interesting things jump out from reading the service manual (all 176 pages of which I’ve waded through so you don’t have to). The shutter life should be at least 50,000 actuations – for anyone buying an old film camera there is an acceptance that it can and will break at some point. 50,000 shutter clicks equates to a minimum of 1389 rolls of 36 exposure film. If you shot the cheapest Kodak colour film today, it would cost you around £15,000 to achieve that many shots. Going on that, I think the shutter durability of most AE-1 and A-1 bodies should be fine for a good while yet.
Next, it is curious that Canon say this is the successor to the EF. The EF was a camera that most have forgotten about or passed by these days – it was a precursor to the AE-1 (released three years prior) and was a future echo of what the AE-1 would be if you crossed it with an F1 and replaced the horizontal cloth shutter with a metal curtain variant. Still, it must’ve been solid enough in terms of design and sales that Canon felt they needed to use it as a marker for quality.
Finally, Canon were very open about their approach to reusing as many AE-1 components as possible and using the AE-1 as a basis for the A-1. Crucially, though, Canon had not stood still in the two years they spent developing and manufacturing the A-1 and the manual goes on to note that there are a multitude of AE-1 components that are visually or practically identical but are actually made using more robust materials or have subtle design tweaks. Canon must have had so much data to work on from the massive sales of the AE-1 that they could fix pretty much all of the problems that came in to their service centres for the A-1 design. The knock on effect of this is that the A-1 should be very reliable, but history tells us that the A-1 also carries some of the exact same issues such as the inevitable shutter squeak from a lack of internal lubrication.
As a “sign of the times” the launch price of the A-1 wasn’t a great deal more expensive than the original AE-1, despite the advances in electronics and the obvious upgrade in terms of features. Within the space of five years and the launch of the AE-1 Program, prices had comparatively fallen through the floor.
The A-1 is seen as the pinnacle of the A series lineup which includes the AE-1, A-1 and AE-1 Program. Despite the AE-1 Program having a further three years in development (releasing in 1981), it is still limited when compared to the A-1. Whether this was a conscious decision, one based on cost saving or simply to avoid cannibalising sales of the A-1 is pure guesswork. Regardless, the AE-1 Program has significantly worse metering ability in low light (1EV compared to -2EV), is unable to hold the shutter open for longer than 2 seconds and does not have the ability to calculate exposures for film over ISO 3200.
Do these features, coupled with convenient aperture priority control, make it a much more desirable camera than the AE-1 Program, though?
Prices and purchasing an A-1 today
Full disclosure up front – my A-1 did not come cheap. This is also not my first A-1, I owned one back in 2009 when they sold for not a great deal of money. I seem to recall I paid something along the lines of £35 for my first copy which wasn’t in superb condition and had seen a fair bit of action in its time. That camera was eventually sold on for spares or repair when it unceremoniously died on me and no amount of flicking the multiple exposure lever would fix the EEEE EE display before it just gave up the ghost and did nothing at all.
“erm… Some money….”
These days, buying an A-1 is not for the budget conscious photographer. Strangely, they are in the exact same price bracket as the AE-1 Program despite being arguably a more desirable camera, both are going for “collector” prices and that isn’t about to change. Once I decided I wanted an A-1 again, I had to wade through countless examples that were not only expensive but absolutely knackered. People trying to dismiss things like “the meter and display never turn off but that’s nothing to worry about” is sadly far too commonplace.
I searched everywhere for a copy, including second hand camera shops and I can honestly say some of these places are absolutely living in cloud cuckoo land. London Camera Exchange, a normally sane retailer, were trying to sell a battered A-1 for £130, complete with a broken battery door and they could only be bothered to take one picture of it. Sometimes, when companies are lazy like that it just comes across as total contempt for their potential customers. I emailed them about it and it was as if they’d put themselves out to provide enough detail to make a purchasing decision on. I quickly ruled them out along with some vendors who shall remain nameless who wanted north of £250 for an average A-1.
Things were not looking good until I found the eBay listing shown above. I didn’t buy instantly because it was a serious case of “if it seems too good to be true then it usually is.” The pictures showed a camera that was absolutely mint. Surely there had to be something wrong with it? I pondered for a while and eventually decided to buy now and ask questions later because not only was the price cheap for the current market, but the condition was just too good to miss. What turned up is the nicest example of an A-1 I’ve ever seen. It was spotlessly clean, no visible damage anywhere and very little signs of use. True to the description, the light seals had been very competently replaced. Honestly, it feels like it was used once and then put back in the box – and this is a camera dated to 1979, one year after launch and forty five years old. I cannot believe my luck.
To make it complete, I ordered one of the rubber eye cups that used to be sold for the A series cameras because they make a real difference to the comfort in use. Other than that, I ran a test film through to just check it was mechanically sound before loading it with some Foma film and taking it out to shoot some live music.
A-1 versus 5D
I’d been asked to cover a music festival for the local newspaper and website, so whilst I had to take things seriously and use a digital camera for the majority of the work I did, I was determined not to miss the opportunity to fire off a few rolls of film at the same time. In effect I did a side by side comparison of the Canon 5D and A-1 in what must be the worlds most pointless equipment face-off of all time.
What I hadn’t anticipated was liking the film results far, far more than the digital pictures. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very happy with many of the digital images, but those film pictures… well, see for yourself:
 |  |
| Canon A-1, FD 135mm F3.5, Foma 400 pushed to ISO 1600 | Canon 5D, 24-105 F4L, ISO 1600 |
I initially used HP5 and pushed it from 400 to 800 but it wasn’t enough to get anything like a sensible hit rate in the lighting conditions available. The next day I went back and took some rolls of Foma 400 and pushed those to 1600. This was just about right – given another chance I’d probably think nothing of pushing to 3200 and this is something I’d like to experiment with in future, but what came out was nothing short of exceptional. As a side note, I expected much more obvious grain by pushing two stops above box speed but in this kind of lighting there was almost no noticeable difference and the grain is certainly not intrusive in the final images.
The hit rate on a roll of 36 was something like 80% which is utter madness. Of course, you are naturally more selective with the shutter when you know each frame needs to count as you’re limited to 36 chances before you’ve got to reload at great expense. I didn’t expect the level of success I had through two films worth, though.
If you’ve never photographed live music before you’d be forgiven for thinking it is a case of point camera, press shutter. The reality is quite different. Even at high ISO’s of 1600 or 3200 your shutter speeds are still quite low which makes a steady hand and waiting for the right moment all the more important. On top of that the lighting is usually quite active and there’s quite a lot of seeing a shot then waiting for the light to briefly hit your subject to complete the image before you fire the shutter.
With modern cameras that can practically see in the dark at ISO 256,000, this is most likely a complete non-issue. I know Canon were keen to stress this with the launch of their new 1 series mirrorless bodies – the press event was held in a completely dark room other than some creatively placed lights. With older cameras like the 5D I use you still have to work around some of the auto focus and ISO limitations, despite the 5D producing really quite crisp, clear and detailed images at ISO 1600 and useable images at ISO 3200. For a camera nearly 20 years old it really is an incredible piece of machinery for still images.
There’s a vast contrast in the shooting mindset between film and digital. This was the first time I had ever used a film camera in this way and it was really rather relaxing. With a digital camera you are smashing out shots all over the place, trying to capture the decisive moment, trying out things that may or may not work with different members of the band, shooting settings being changed frequently – there’s a lot going on. As most people who shoot old film cameras know, the analogue process is all about slowing down, taking your time and considering the scene in front of you. As it was with the A-1.
I used a 135mm F3.5 lens that was the perfect focal length for framing tight head and shoulders shots as well as doing the odd full length shot from slightly further back. As there is no F3.5 on the A-1 I set the camera to aperture priority, F4 and let it handle the rest with the built in meter.
Manual focus could well be seen as a disadvantage during a frenetic musical performance and admittedly in some cases it is. Shooting wide open on a long lens means your depth of field is really quite shallow, small movements can really ruin your day. What you don’t get with manual focus is that horrible moment where the AF lets you down and hunts to both extremes of the lens before finally locking on to something. With manual focus you are always pretty much in focus and a small tweak is all that is necessary to put you right again.
I found this quite the advantage and quickly got used to making micro adjustments as best I could, although there were times where confirming focus was almost impossible and I reverted to using peoples noses as a focusing aid because they’d clearly line up in the split prism! If you’ve never used a manual focus camera before this will mean absolutely nothing to you, but the short version is you can’t tell if focus is spot on when you’re looking at a plain, blank surface like the side of someones face.
These film images are not edited in any way other than some sharpening. That’s it. Nothing but a scan and sharpen – the beautiful contrast and lighting are exactly as they came out of the camera. As someone who loves black and white photography, this was a real revelation moment. This is the contrast I’ve been searching for, the lighting in portraiture… All of it was spot on.
This is not a “film is better than digital” rant by any means, but what caused the outcomes here? Well, if we think about it the following things were at play:
- Pushing film a few stops introduces higher contrast
- The lighting was spot on for contrasty images
- Manual focus – this was actually an advantage in such low light and led to a higher level of in focus shots
- Metering – the centre weighted average metering on the A-1 has done a surprisingly good job of metering for what little light there was whilst clearly under exposing slightly which adds to the effect we see here
- The A-1 is awesome
When the A-1 was launched, Canon made a lot of their “clutter free” viewfinder. I think if we’re being honest this was some serious marketing to cover the fact that segmented and LED driven displays were relatively new in the 1970’s, given a launch date of 1978 and a development/manufacturing lag, this was technology that was only about 6 years old. You can see the development in viewfinder information between the A-1 and AE-1 Program later which had slightly more detail and different colours too. However, I do love an uncluttered viewfinder and in any situation where time is of the essence, I pay barely any attention to viewfinder information anyway. In a more considered setting like shooting landscapes, of course this plays a much bigger role and it is useful to just be able to glance down and double check nothing silly is going on.
The only negative I have about the viewfinder display is that it is only active when the shutter is pressed half way. I can understand this as a power saving decision, older LED displays were relatively power hungry and leaving it on all the time would run the battery down. This does make changing settings slightly more difficult and because I’m old I could never remember which direction to spin the aperture wheel in. You could try to balance the shutter and try to spin the wheel at the same time if you had a very long middle finger, but practically it is impossible to change settings and see the outcome in the viewfinder.
A-1 or AE-1 Program, which should you buy?
By now it should be abundantly clear that I love the A-1. Taken on its own, I can tell you now that it is all the manual focus film camera you will ever need and for me personally it is perfect. I have owned cameras that the Internet will tell you are far better, such as the Nikon F2. The Nikon is indeed a fantastic, rugged and well built camera – I just don’t get on with it. I find it too heavy, I don’t like the ergonomics and the interchangeable viewfinders/meters are unreliable and a total sod to repair. Of course, the A-1 isn’t immortal, but should it break you can get another for less than half the price of an F2. Don’t take this argument too seriously, you buy whatever camera you like, ultimately we all like different things.
There have been some important questions on my mind this whole time, though. I love the AE-1 Program, it was my first manual focus camera, it does pretty much everything I want and is ergonomically almost identical to the A-1. Do I need an A-1, then? Do I need both? Which one would I buy now if I had neither?
Those are difficult questions to answer. Let’s take them in order.
I already had an AE-1 Program. Do I need an A-1? Objectively, no. I am not limited by the AE-1 Program in any way and there are ways to bodge some of the missing features. Aperture priority can be achieved by manually setting aperture and then balancing the shutter speed using the built in meter which will indicate a recommended F stop for a given shutter speed. Exposure compensation can be applied by temporarily changing the ISO, although I don’t really like doing this. I prefer the control wheel on the A-1, I think the ISO and exposure compensation dial is better made and the rewind crank certainly is. However none of these are real deal breakers. To me, the bottom line is that if you already own a Program, you don’t need an A-1 unless aperture priority is an absolute, deal breaking must for you.
Do I need both cameras? No. No I don’t – for many of the reasons I’ve just listed, they’re very similar cameras. Going forward, I will probably use the A-1 simply because it is in such perfect condition and it does have those few extras that I’ll make use of now and again. I prefer aperture priority shooting and that’s reason enough to choose the A-1 over the Program. I will never get rid of the AE-1 Program for reasons I’ve written about before, but it’ll certainly be more difficult to pick it up for a particular purpose now.
Which one would I buy now if I had neither? Well… where to start?
AE-1 Program prices are nuts at the moment. I just did a quick eBay search and there is one with 11 hours left, covered in grime and dirt with a broken light meter and people are bidding over £50 already for it. The cheapest I can find which is complete with action grip, doesn’t have a broken battery door and isn’t listed as “for parts” or “untested” is £110. The same search, with the same criteria (no broken parts, complete, working) for an A-1 reveals the cheapest camera available right now is £100.
Given that these cameras are now both firmly in the silly money category and you will be paying a premium for either, it doesn’t make sense that you’d pay the same amount for less camera. It’s like asking if you’d buy a 5D mark 1 or a mark 3 for the same money – it’s a pointless question. The AE-1 Program has become such a cult camera that people are now inflating prices to silly levels and, sadly, buyers are queueing up to pay them. If you really want a manual focus, A series Canon SLR then the A-1 is your choice these days, just accept that they too are no longer cheap by any means – but you may as well get the most for your money.
Conclusions
As far as FD based Canon cameras go, the F-1n rightly sits at the top of the tree with a hard as nails construction, superb reliability, robustness and the advantage it will still largely work without a battery. But you’ll pay handsomely for it.
The top tier, then, belongs to the A-1 and the T90. I don’t believe any of the T50, 70 or 80 improve upon the A-1 in any appreciable way. The T90 is a seminal piece of design and does pretty much everything a manual focus film camera ever could or should have been able to do. It is beautiful, insanely capable and brilliant. If you want a camera which feels modern, but uses manual focus lenses and film then the T90 is for you. However, the very fact it is packed with technology and auto winds the film for you may well put some people off and I do personally feel that these things do detract from the fun and immersion of using film cameras.
It is no surprise that the A series cameras are so wildly popular. They have just enough technology in them to make them a pleasure to use, whilst maintaining the manual, analogue feel that so many film photographers crave such as manual film advance and an absence of viewfinder clutter. Indeed, the A-1 has a little switch which lets you turn the viewfinder off completely, which is a nice touch. From this perspective, it isn’t surprising that prices are driving ever upwards as stock becomes limited and demand rises.
Today, the T90, A-1, AE-1 and AE-1 program are all available for the same price. If they were all lined up on a table and I could pick one up to use, I’d take the A-1 every time. Would I be upset if I had to use a Program? No, of course not. I’m coming at this in totally the wrong way, considering I already own or have used all of those cameras – I’m in an extremely privileged position compared to someone coming in to this for the first time.
If you are that first time person, the conclusion for once is clear – buy an A-1.
References and resources
Clock speed of the Canon A1 CPU SN28720 – Canon A1 Service Manual Page 138
The service manual is an absolute wealth of information about the camera, down to the unique way it encodes dial positions into binary. Most useful is probably the comprehensive lubrication guide found on page 114-118. You may well find this the kind of reading that puts you to sleep but I found the whole thing fascinating, it is full of interesting discussion from the designers about why certain aspects are designed in the way they are. My favourite fact gleaned from reading the service manual is that the A-1 takes 12 milliseconds or just 390 clock cycles to determine exposure before firing the shutter. If you think 390 cycles sounds like a lot, that represents some very impressive programming on a limited CPU to make those calculations happen that quickly, I doff my cap to the Canon engineers in the 1970’s and I may or may not be slightly jealous that I wasn’t around then to work in computing at a time that was genuinely exciting…
Hostofoto.fr – This guy has invented the one reasonably safe way to lubricate the shutter and fix the “canon squeak” on an AE-1, AE-1 Program or A1 without a full strip down. There are lots of very bad videos on YouTube of people taking the base off and just spraying lube blindly into the camera – don’t do this whatever you do. This isn’t that! I’ve used it on my Program and it’s worked for well over two years now without issue. You will want some high grade watch lubricant or, at a push, gun oil with a needle made to measure as shown. Very useful.
Share this post:
