Handmade Genuine Real Leather Half Camera Case Bag Cover for Canon AE-1 Yellow Brown

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So why is the Canon AE-1, a light-tight box of room temperature mayonnaise, so popular? It’s part of the depressing truth about film photography in the 21st century that we’re attaching value to those that are prone to break the least (the X-Pan notwithstanding) . Essentially, this camera is popular because a lot of it can break and you can still use it to take photos. And they made a lot of them. It’s in the same boat as the Pentax K1000, a camera that’s the result of a company taking a good camera, the Pentax KX, and taking out all the features of interest. To change the aperture, look at the lens from the top view, you’ll see numbers from 1.8 to 16, or similar. Rotate this ring to choose the aperture that you want. You can also shoot this camera in shutter priority by pushing in the small button about 1cm away from the letter ‘A’ and rotating it until it is in the ‘A’ position. Changing the ISO on the Canon AE-1 also requires using this dial. One the one hand, hats off to Canon for integrating three critical functions into minimal camera real estate. On the other hand, changing ISO often requiring asking for the assistance of a small child to use their slight and delicate hands to perform the tactile gymnastics needed to achieve this feat. It’s like no one was actually asked to use it before someone signed off on the design.

Boring, all this “hate” about cameras, in particular if it is about a Canon product (I am no fanboy!). Nobody would write such a review about a Nikon. My main SLR for many years was a Nikon FM-2. Let me cite one passage and swap brand/camera names: “…the design of the Nikon FM-2 can be described as typical of a Japanese SLR made in the mid-70s, which is a polite way to say almost completely unremarkable. The greatest design triumph on the body is the inclusion of the old-school skinny Nikon logo”. Well, you can easily recognize that this and other passages in this review would apply perfectly to an FM-2 or many other cameras made by different brands during that period of classic industrial design.

And so I brushed off my dusty AE-1 and start shooting film again, with no real objective other than to try and spark passion. And boy did it. So I enrolled in a summer darkroom photography course at the local community college. And much to my excitement, a fully-manual camera was at the top of the list for course materials.

These days, I still use my AE-1 from time to time for sentimental reasons, but it's largely been retired (replaced by a Nikon FM2). Fortunately, the lessons it's taught have been well-learned, and I don't just mean exposure values. It's taught me how to slow down and reconnect with my childhood photographic curiosity, the one that sent me careening down my present career path some 17 years ago. It's taught me how to slow down and reconnect with my childhood photographic curiosity Skateboarding was my earliest photographic obsession. I shot this in 2004 for a cover of Dan's Zine, a monthly publication I published with some friends. Will Best, Taildrop.You’ll also probably need to replace your light seals which is very common in old SLR cameras. If you are getting light leaks in your images then you definitely need to replace your light seals which is very easy to do as you can see here. Final Word