Classic Cameras: the Canon AE-1 35mm SLR Film Camera

Believe it or not, numerous technological and cultural events occurred in 1976 that continue to shape our world today. The USA celebrated its Bicentennial, Apple Computer was founded, the first commercial flight of the Concorde took off, the Ramones released their first album, and Canon introduced one of its most successful cameras of all time. Developed nearly 30 years before the 5D, this camera is not even part of the now-prevalent EOS system. It does not take EF lenses, it does not have autofocus and, of course, it is not digital. It was, however, a forward-thinking SLR that became the first camera to feature an internal microcomputer, as well as rare-for-its-time shutter-speed priority TTL metering.

If you haven’t guessed yet, the camera is the Canon AE-1, which stands for Auto Exposure One, and is now one of the most popular cameras with which many have learned the basics of photography. It was my first real camera, and was the only camera I used for the first five years of my photographic education. As my skill set improved and my curiosity was piqued, I gradually moved away from the AE-1 in favor of other, more esoteric cameras—medium format and large format—and eventually digital. And even though I had hardly looked at an AE-1 in more than a decade, having the opportunity to work with one again felt akin to returning to your childhood hometown and still knowing your way around the block.

The beauty of the AE-1 is the simplicity that eloquently disguises the truly innovative inner workings of its design. On the outside, it sports the classic silver and black finish, or if you are lucky to find one, an all-black finish, along with a lightweight, compact profile. Each of the few controls on the top panel is easily accessible, including the shutter-speed dial, which provides speeds from 2 to 1/1000 second, as well as Bulb; the simple ASA selection dial that is adjustable by pulling up on the shutter speed dial, and permits metering for film speeds between 25 and 3200; the film advance lever, which is fitted with the customary rubberized tip; the shutter-release button along with the swinging self-timer lever; and the battery indicator button, which I’ve yet to figure out. The front of the camera body has a similarly Spartan design, which includes a depth-of-field preview switch, a backlight control switch that lets you override the meter’s reading and overexpose the scene by 1.5 stops, a flash sync terminal, and the battery compartment, which doubles as a finger grip.

As insignificant as it might seem now, this battery compartment is the gateway to one of the defining components of the AE-1, and what essentially differentiates the AE-1 from the mostly mechanical cameras of the era. Since the AE-1 is an electronically controlled camera, it will not perform without battery power. While this may seem like a nuisance, or very normal by today’s standards, it afforded more precise, repeatable results, and reduced the overall cost of the AE-1 when it was introduced. By replacing the multitude of mechanical, metal, and machined components with relatively few electronic components, manufacturing costs could be reduced and the process of building each camera could be further automated. For the user, this meant a camera with high-end-for-the-time functionality and versatility along with an affordable price tag. For Canon it meant millions of sales over the course of the camera's eight-year production run, and its subsequently legendary status. The AE-1 paved the way for future electronic cameras and signaled the transition from all-mechanical to electronically controlled operations.

The electronic infrastructure of the AE-1 also brought with it a range of accessories that were unusual  for their time in 1976, including an accessory motorized film winder, the Power Winder A, that replaced the need to physically wind between shots and offered up to a blazing-fast 2 fps continuous shooting rate. The Data Back A was also available, which can be seen as the precursor to EXIF metadata, and could be used to imprint configurable sets or types of data, such as the date, onto your negatives as you shot. Finally, the AE-1 also debuted alongside a dedicated flash, the Speedlite 155A, which could be set to configure the camera’s f/stop and shutter-speed settings automatically, based on metered reflective light from the subject that differs from TTL metering and, rather, relies on a front-facing photo sensor on the flash body itself.

With this bit of history in mind, when I finally got to shooting with this camera again, it truly brought me back to the same feeling I had when I took a Photo 101 course in high school. “You need to have a 35mm camera that can shoot manually,” said Professor Berkun on my first day of photo class. “Try to see if your parents have an old camera in the closet” and I remember going home and asking my mom if we even had a manual camera, since I could only recollect smaller point-and-shoots and disposable cameras being used throughout my childhood. Sure enough, she had her AE-1 packed away, but not forgotten. I remember bringing the camera to school the following day and getting the nod of approval from my teacher, along with a brief speech on how an AE-1 was the learning tool. Its manual capabilities let you refine your skill set and help you to understand the basics of exposure, yet its non-intimidating stature meant it was no big deal to carry around with me everywhere I went.

Although now well versed in the technical side of photography, I immediately snapped into a bit of wonderment when handling the camera for the first time in years. I felt like checking to make sure everything worked properly and I was simply intrigued by just releasing the shutter even prior to putting in my first roll of film.

After finishing that first roll, the AE-1 itself seemed to sort of fall into the background as it became more natural to work with all of the minor quirks of the particular model I was using. The viewfinder is bright and large, but had a yellowish cast and some dust had collected inside it during its four-decade lifespan. The shutter made a high-pitched whirring noise, the aperture ring of the FD 50mm f/1.8 lens seemed to stick a bit between f/4 and f/2.8, and the film rewind button on the bottom plate never seemed to stay locked when I was rewinding a roll of film. Nowadays, if any these problems were to occur with a new EOS DSLR, the camera would be deemed a failure. For the AE-1, though, at least in my now historical perspective, these flaws added some character to the experience. None of the issues I ran into were particularly bothersome, and none of them affected the picture-taking experience. It must be said that for a camera approaching its 40th birthday, it is holding up quite well.

When it came time to go out and shoot, I felt like exploring my home borough of Brooklyn, where I had shot many past school photo assignments. Albeit a very large area to call home, I stuck with familiar locations to focus my attention on just taking photographs and to reacquaint myself with this camera. It seemed fitting to keep with my academic introduction to the AE-1 and search for elements of composition, formal designs, and take the opportunity to reëxamine my borough as if I were instructed to seek new perspectives of a familiar place.

The AE-1’s simplicity was beneficial for this exercise: smooth manual focus, an intuitive single match- needle in the viewfinder for metering—the sensuousness experience of sound and view—brought more fun to the process of making pictures than I had experienced in a while. As novel as it seems too, the AE-1 held its own throughout the day of photographing in a variety of situations. Even when photographing in bright sunlight or near-dusk conditions, the meter still seemed to provide consistent results and the shutter speeds were accurate.

Working in shutter-speed priority mode was a unique experience, mainly due to the fact that it’s my least-used mode nowadays, with a DSLR. It felt a bit quirky, though, to be working with such a machine in a nearly completely automated manner. I can only imagine how this must have felt during its initial release when the experience was likely to be completely foreign to many budding photographers. It should also be pointed out that the introduction of a shutter-speed priority mode can be closely approximated to contemporary cameras featuring in-body image stabilization. While radically different in literal terms, the newly developed shutter-speed priority mode was introduced as a means to reduce the likelihood of having blurry photos by helping to ensure you are always working at hand-holdable shutter speeds. Of course, this doesn’t always take into account that at some point, your lens or film will not be fast enough to keep up with darker conditions; but still, having a technology that is there to assist in preventing unwanted errors must have been new and exciting.

At the end of the day I could see myself continuing to work with this camera just for the sake of the shooting experience. The process of working with a camera of such a legendary status seemed to outweigh the actual results I might be getting with such a tool. By today's standards, it is a humble camera that teaches you, and compels you, to reconsider how to approach photography from the ground level and, of course, brings with it a healthy dose of nostalgic appeal. The Canon AE-1 can be seen as a milestone that helped to steer camera design and culture to where it is now. It introduced millions of people to photography in the 1970s and it continues to be a gateway camera for students today.