# My Canon Story



## EdB (Mar 15, 2014)

Back in the 70s as a young teenager I received my first Canon from my dad, an AE-1 with a power winder. Two frames per second! Woohoo! It served me well and if it wasn't stolen I'd still have it today. In my late teens I acquired the F1n and shot sports for a small town newspaper, that's it on the left in the attached image with a 300 f4 FD. Awesome camera and built like a tank. Up to five fps with the motor drive and a switch on it to rewind the film! The body even worked without a battery from 1/125 to 1/2000 IIRC. X-sync was at 1/90 and I think 1/60 on the AE1.

I also acquired a used T90, cool little camera that served me well until it was stolen along with the AE1. The theft happened quite some time after Canon introduced the EOS system. I was a bit pissed when they changed the lens mount and vowed not to switch. Since most of my lenses were also stolen I broke that vow after considering Nikon and decided to stick with Canon and got the EOS 3 with the 300 4L you see in the pic and also a 28-105 lens. The 3 is such an elegant camera, simple and ergonomic and the eye control focus was brilliant. If I could have any Canon film camera from the past with a digital back, it would be the 3. Along with the PJ I also did event stuff until I got sick of it and quit and went to work in construction. 

When digital came around I bought the original digital rebel just to have fun with it. That's the third camera from the left with the 28-105 on it. Weird lens on a crop body but it was good enough at the time. I didn't buy another digital camera until the G9 (that's it sitting on the typewriter and both still work) and played with that until I bought a Fuji XP1 about a year and a half ago. 

That leads me to my latest Canon, the 6D with the 24-105L. Just got it today and I was quite surprised at the heft of the lens compared to the 28-105 and the Fugi stuff. It was hard to resist the B&H/Amazon deal at 2k for both. 

I've shot a few events with the Fuji and found I didn't hate it as much as I had in the past. Not sure how much I'll get back into that, don't want to repeat history. There's nothing worse that doing something you love and have it start to feel like a job. But a few jobs will help pay off the new stuff.

I'm curious to see the IQ difference between the 28-105 and the L, haha. I've been playing with the 6 in my dark living room and I think the AF complaints are quite exaggerated, seems pretty snappy to me, (granted, it's not real world), especially compared to the XP1. The Fuji is good in normal light but does struggle in low light at times. Some friends are doing a tough mudder next month and I can't wait to see how it does but for the most part I do landscapes and a bit of urban stuff. I also want to try it with starscapes, thinking about getting the Sammy 14 for that.

Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.


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## privatebydesign (Mar 15, 2014)

Ed,

We must be brothers from different mothers!

Teenager in "70's, bought AE1 with odd job money, went on to shoot for local paper, moved to A1's, lusted after the 300 f4 for ages but ended up with the 300 f2.8. Then to F1N's, held out against EOS until early 2002, bought two 1VHS's the three 2.8 zooms (boy zooms came on a long way since the Vivitar Series 1's) and the 300 f2.8IS, ran very little film through them before getting a 1D, worked all over the place using all kinds of pool Canon gear until four years ago, got a 1Ds MkIII, then got a second one, blah blah.

Sold a lot of the FD stuff many years ago, then bought some of it back before the EOS stuff, including that original black AE1 and 50 f1.8. It has been in storage since 2002 and some before that, but I get it all back in a week or so as it has now crossed the Atlantic and is currently in customs. 

I might be all nostalgic in a week or so!


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## EdB (Mar 15, 2014)

Haha, awesome. I'm guessing you thought T-MAX 3200 was a godsend when it came out as well? lol


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## privatebydesign (Mar 15, 2014)

No my most exciting film day was when Velvia came out with a 100 iso version! I loved my PanF too, I was an Ilford B&W guy and used shed loads of FP4 and HP5 as well. I have an FN-100 back for my F1N as I used to roll my own from 100' cans, did 36 (stretched to 40) exposure re loadable cassettes, you couldn't fool the 1VHS's to go past 36 shots though ..........

Wow, I get thousands of slides when my shipping stuff arrives too.


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## EdB (Mar 15, 2014)

Working in a small town, high school football stadiums and basketball courts were pretty dimly lit, 3200 was sooooo much better than pushed Tri-X. I can't even guess how many rolls of that stuff I went through. I shot pretty much exclusively B&W back then for PJ, color was reserved for events and portraits and that was always neg film. Most of the chrome film I shot was just for myself and even then, it wasn't too much. I've always been fond of B&W even today.


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## Valvebounce (Mar 15, 2014)

Hi privatebydesign.
I have no comprehension of most of what you said here, film stock etc. but I do understand slides, we had been taking advantage of the poor weather here to take my father out from the nursing home and for something to do we set up the projector and screen. We had a great time looking through slides of all sorts shot by dad, all manual Practica then an AE-1 Program we had great times and despite a degree of confusion over yesterdays lunch he could tell us about most of the pictures.
There are quite a few landscapes with no landmarks we recognise, where's that dad? No idea, just another lovely view! Sadly that won't happen anymore, he passed away on Monday. (sorry, not looking for sympathy, just explaining)
I am working to digitise the slides and post some here, hopefully someone will recognise the landscapes and put a location to the image! They are mostly of the north of England, Cumbria and the Lake District.

Cheers Graham.





privatebydesign said:


> No my most exciting film day was when Velvia came out with a 100 iso version! I loved my PanF too, I was an Ilford B&W guy and used shed loads of FP4 and HP5 as well. I have an FN-100 back for my F1N as I used to roll my own from 100' cans, did 36 (stretched to 40) exposure re loadable cassettes, you couldn't fool the 1VHS's to go past 36 shots though ..........
> 
> Wow, I get thousands of slides when my shipping stuff arrives too.


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## privatebydesign (Mar 15, 2014)

Hey there Valvebounce,

Sorry for your loss. My wife's grandmother passed away two weeks ago and I have been helping the family sort through her house, there are two Kodak projectors and literally thousands of slides, some in carousels, some in boxes from developing, and some loose. I have a Canon FD slide copier coming in my shipping and I think I will work my way through them and make an online gallery for the whole family to be able to see the collection, I think they are mostly family type people shots though, not interesting and unrecognised landscapes like yours. Yours sounds like an interesting project.

I need to make a post about advice for an FD to EOS macro convertor.


Ed,

I also remember getting excited when XP2 came out and we could push it to 800 with good results. Iso is funny, I hovered between 25 and 125 for many years, now 12,800 is taken for granted, I really need to get me a 1DX.


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## Valvebounce (Mar 15, 2014)

Hi privatebydesign.
I'm sorry to hear of your families loss too. Which way did you cross the pond? I have one of those 5MP USB slide/negative copiers, but it will only work on my xp laptop, and that is sloooow! Other than that it seems to work well enough. I need to get one that will work with win7.

Cheers Graham.


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## privatebydesign (Mar 16, 2014)

Hi there Graham,

East to West 

I was born in the UK and left in '97, worked in San Tropez for a couple of years then moved to the Caribbean, did a couple of stints in SE Asia, mostly Thailand and Malaysia, then back to the Caribbean, then I married an American girl last year and am currently in the USA.

As for the slide copying, I am just going to use my old, but dedicated, FD macro slide copier setup with 50mm macro lens, I figure it gives me a 21MP copy, I have seen it done like this and the only issue is getting the lighting right to prevent excessive contrast, something Velvia in particular is notorious for.

All the best.


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## Valvebounce (Mar 16, 2014)

Hi again privatebydesign.
So you are using something like this? http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Slide-duplicator-35mm-/151239054245

Is this in principle better than a copier in a box USB thing.

I kinda guessed from Ermintrude that you went that way, but wasn't sure if they might have had Magic Roundabout there too! 

To the OP sorry for diverting the direction of the post. 

Cheers Graham.





privatebydesign said:


> Hi there Graham,
> 
> East to West
> 
> ...


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## privatebydesign (Mar 16, 2014)

Hi Graham,

This is what I have, it is a fancy version of your linked item, the really high quality bit about my setup is the use of the Canon FD 50mm macro, obviously I am going to be putting my FF DSLR onto it not the Lumix, I stole this picture!

It also allows cropping of the original and it is setup for good even illumination across the slide, another bonus is I never cut up many of my developed films so they are still rolls, the FD macro kit has a film roll holder too.

HTH.


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## EdB (Mar 18, 2014)

privatebydesign said:


> Ed,
> 
> I also remember getting excited when XP2 came out and we could push it to 800 with good results. Iso is funny, I hovered between 25 and 125 for many years, now 12,800 is taken for granted, I really need to get me a 1DX.



If I wasn't shooting fast moving stuff, Tri-X was my go to film, love the grain from that film. The 6D does 12,800 pretty good and you'll save about 5k or so. haha

Finally got out today and did a bit of shooting.Too much color?


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## privatebydesign (Mar 18, 2014)

EdB said:


> privatebydesign said:
> 
> 
> > Ed,
> ...



I was a Velvia shooter, I don't understand the question "Too much colour!"


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## Valvebounce (Mar 18, 2014)

Hi Ed.
Too much colour? I would say that if the image is a true representation of the colour of the sky/reflection when captured then no, not too much colour, if however you have turned up the red then yes possibly too much colour for some! 
I like it so IMHO not too much colour either way! 
Is it a humble opinion if I add voice to it, am I shouting it (IMHO) I capitalise because it is an acronym?

Cheers Graham.




EdB said:


> Finally got out today and did a bit of shooting.Too much color?


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## alexanderferdinand (Mar 18, 2014)

Interesting stories!
I had the AE-1 Program, the A1, 2x T90 (I loved them!!), EOS 50 (hated to invest in a new Bajonett!).

Break.

Slow start with a 300D- was ok.
Then 2009 things started with the 5DMkII; I was more addicted to photography then before, but now: I could afford the stuff I wanted to have.

Films I used (I was only doing B+W in my own darkroom):
Ilford FP4, HP5, the XP1 (didnt like it so much, cause I couldnt develop it myself...), the whole T- MAX- bunch, the Fuji Neopan 1600.

Best wishes from Austria!

Nice thread!


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## EdB (Mar 19, 2014)

Welcome to the thread Alex. It's nice to have a place for us old guys, huh? 



privatebydesign said:


> I was a Velvia shooter, I don't understand the question "Too much colour!"



Ha! Touche. 




Valvebounce said:


> Hi Ed.
> Too much colour? I would say that if the image is a true representation of the colour of the sky/reflection when captured then no, not too much colour, if however you have turned up the red then yes possibly too much colour for some!
> I like it so IMHO not too much colour either way!
> Is it a humble opinion if I add voice to it, am I shouting it (IMHO) I capitalise because it is an acronym?
> ...



Well, it is enhanced but I've never had a problem with enhancement. If it was good enough for Adams it's good enough for me. I think he would have loved the digital age, it allows us to do the things he pioneered with black and white film and paper much easier and also do it in color.


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## EricFiskCGD (Mar 19, 2014)

If I could go back in time and offer myself one piece of advice is to take up photography along the same time you did!


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## slclick (Mar 19, 2014)

thanks for sharing , love personal histories like these


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## CanonOregon (Mar 19, 2014)

Certainly agree about the EOS 3. I tell folks that that was my favorite Canon camera- that the Eye Control worked great for me. I sold it years ago now as I wasn't going back to film...and I owned and operated a photo lab at the time! Sure wish Canon could figure out how to put Eye Control in a digital body! I shot pretty much all print film with it- and towards the eye never bothered with anything below Fuji 400- I'd shoot it at 320 ASA and it was great! 800 and 1600 pretty much the same. Shot a few rolls of Konica 3200 as well.


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## Hillsilly (Mar 19, 2014)

EdB said:


> I'm curious to see the IQ difference between the 28-105 and the L, haha.



The 28-105 was my first ever lens that was wider than 35mm. When I bought it, I couldn't believe how wide it was - my first thought was "wow!". Before buying some L lenses (and switching to digital, which turned me into a pixel peeper), I used to think the 28-105 was pretty good, but in comparison, it struggles at the wider end. Still, mine served me well for 10+ years.


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## canon1dxman (Mar 19, 2014)

privatebydesign said:


> Ed,
> 
> We must be brothers from different mothers!
> 
> ....and I could be your cousin! 2 x A1 bodies, stolen from a car in Portugal whilst on holiday. Replaced with T70's (I think that was what they were called) which didn't last long. Ah, the Vivitar Series 1's. Yes indeed, progress has been amazing since those halcyon days. Went through the T90 to EOS1's for motorsports work but finally gave up on my beloved Tri-X to go all digital when the 10D arrived.


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## Arctic Photo (Mar 19, 2014)

Thanks for sharing this story. There's about ten years between us since I was a teenager during the 80's, but my Canon story is much shorter, i only started with Canon in 2006 I think, when I picked up the then brand new 400D with two lenses.

My parents are retired since long and they have converted thousands of images fromfilm to digital, I haven't gotten them over in my computer yet but your story makes me realize I need to do that before it's too late. I want to be able to have time to go through them all with them.

Again thanks and all the best!


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