![]() So they made their own 35mm film SLR which natively shot in aperture priority mode the Canon AV-1. Canon responded in 1978 with the A1, the first camera to offer both aperture priority, shutter priority, and full Program AE (a mode in which the camera calculates and automatically sets both aperture and shutter speed).īut even as the shutter priority Canon AE-1 was selling unprecedented numbers, according to Canon’s camera museum, many users in the USA and Europe preferred the aperture priority modes found in the cameras of competing brands like Pentax, Nikon, and Minolta. In 1977, the year following the launch of the AE-1, Minolta (ever the trailblazer) launched the first SLR with both aperture priority and shutter priority in a single camera with the Minolta XD11. From that moment on, every manufacturer raced to have the best auto-exposure mode (or modes).Ĭanon chose that their early auto-exposure cameras would focus on automatically calculating the lens aperture while leaving the user to choose shutter speed – hence the term shutter priority and the shutter priority Canon AE-1. But in 1976, when the AE-1 debuted, it signaled a big shift in what users could expect an SLR camera to deliver. Next, the user simply selects the desired shutter speed for every shot, and when he or she presses the shutter release, the camera calculates the light streaming into the lens against the ISO and shutter speed values set by the user and selects the appropriate lens aperture which will result in a correct exposure. Load some 400 ISO Ilford HP5 and spin the dial to 400. The user of an AE-1 sets the ISO dial of the camera to that of the film that’s been loaded. To illustrate how this works, for those who don’t know, we’ll use the Canon AE-1, which was one of the first cameras to ever offer auto-exposure (this is, incidentally, where the camera gets its name – Auto-Exposure 1). ![]() Instead, camera makers chose to have their cameras calculate one, or the other, and control that particular parameter in a semi-auto exposure mode. Limitations in the computer technology of the day and the electro-mechanical nature of the machines of the early 1970s, however, meant that most of these new cameras could not calculate and automatically set both the lens aperture and camera’s shutter speed. ![]() The biggest innovation of the decade was auto-exposure, a technology which allowed cameras to measure the light entering the camera’s lens and automatically calculate the parameters of shutter speed or aperture to make a correct exposure. The 1970s saw an intense push by Japanese camera manufacturers to add computer automation into their 35mm SLR cameras. Which is why I’m at least mildly interested in the Canon AV-1. Would it not lock me out of my preferred shooting mode it would indeed be a great fit in my hands. It’s a beautiful camera with excellent proportions, near-perfect controls, simplicity of design, a capable metering system, wonderful lenses, and a great viewfinder. ![]() And I don’t like it for exactly one reason the Canon AE-1 is made to operate in shutter priority semi-auto mode (with manual override option), and as a photographer who almost exclusively shoots in aperture priority semi-auto I have tended to prefer cameras by camera makers that have prioritized this mode in their designs – namely, Minolta, Pentax, and (most of all) Nikon.īut I do love many things about the Canon AE-1, besides. Despite that venerable camera’s historically groundbreaking design, despite its original unprecedented sales success, and despite its continued popularity today, I just don’t like it.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |