My review on the Canon AE-1

[royalrat]

After 10 years of digital cameras, I felt the urge to go back in time and shot pictures with real film. I can describe in details how much I love the feel of celluloid and raw materials, but I know a lot of you think the same. What I intend to do here is to review a few cameras from the old time, and show you the results I’ve got. I hope it will give you the extra push to search the closet for that old camera you stored back then in the days when it took a few long hours between pushing the button and looking at the final result.

I just finished the first roll of my old/new Canon AE-1. This camera, manufactured between 1976 and 1984 is a great fun and not so difficult to handle. It took me some time to find her a 6V 28-PX battery, which is essential for operating, but once I got it powered up, it was as good as new.

To see the photos and read more:
royalrat.wordpress.com/2011/07/01/my-photographic-time-tunnel-canon-ae-1/

[daveh]

The Canon AE-1 is another of those cameras which I might have bought new - but didn't.

[mickeyobe]

The Canon AE-1 is an impressive camera.

It does have one peculiar characteristic.
It's shutter sounds like a hay fever sufferer sneezing.

Mickey

[PeterW]

Mickey,

What you're hearing isn't a peculiarity of the AE1 shutter. It is the infamous Canon Squeak (or squeal).

This is quite common on A-Series Canon SLRs and is caused by lubrication of the flywheel damper gears and bearings drying up. The real cure is to disassemble the camera, clean out the dried-up gunge and re-lube.

However, it is possble to get rid of it without too much dismantling by using a hypodermic needle to put just two drops of oil on the bearings.

I haven't done it, but I know two people who report success using a silicon based oil which is reputed not to run all over everthing.

The method of doing this is on Rick Olsen's invaluable website. Here's a link



Read carefully the part about taking the top cover off an AE1. It isn't intuitive!

PeterW

[mickeyobe]

PeterW,

After perusing those simple instructions I decided that the human sound of a sneeze or squeal is preferable to operating and, possibly, losing the patient and getting involved in a malpractice lawsuit.

Mickey