Personally, I would choose the A1 but that’s purely for aesthetics and the light meter. If these things don’t bother you and you want to pay a little bit less, the AE-1 is a good choice. To Attach a Flash you simply have to slide it into the hotshoe, located on the top middle of the prism. When using flash, ensure you are using it at the correct flash sync speed. The Canon AE-1 shutter speed dial is a fantastic piece of design, if you want to feel like you’re fondling a gear from a reject version of Mouse Trap while also slowing you down as you shoot. It’s made from cassette case grade plastic, and gives all the satisfaction of reheated oatmeal made with too much soy milk when used. And because it’s integrated into the film advance lever, you can’t adjust the dial with your thumb. Meaning you always have to take your finger off the shutter to change the shutter speed. Cool. There are some things to like about the Canon AE-1. It uses FD glass, which is both relatively cheap and abundant. It is perhaps underappreciated that because new 35mm cameras aren’t being made (or at least not produced in volume), we have changed how we evaluate these cameras as a community. When cameras were being produced like any other consumer electronic device, the longevity of a camera was less of a concern. But now, as we see once state of the art electronics fail over the decades, we’ve placed a priority on simplicity. This consideration makes once humble cameras into valuable objects in the film world.

If you want to save money, it’s a good idea to use out of date film, which can still provide some very good shots. How To Use The AE-1 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. Personally, I would choose the A1 but that’s purely for aesthetics and the light meter of the A1. If these things don’t bother you and you want to pay a little bit less, the AE-1 is a fine choice. What Kind Of Photography Is The AE-1 Best For?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. 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. If you want to buy some film and you’re not sure what to buy or where then this article will solve all of your problems.

If you want to know how this camera compares to others, how much you should be paying, some of its common issues and much more then read on! Canon AE-1 SpecsTo Change the ASA/ISO, you’ll see that on the same dial as the shutter speed, there is a small window with green numbers inside, these numbers are your ISO. To change the ISO, you must pull upwards on the silver outer ring of the dial, then rotate it to choose the correct shutter speed. The design of the Canon AE-1 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 Canon logo, which is an act of typographic perfection so complete that the company was forced to change it to a bloated mess of a logo to cause people to buy more gear to fill the empty void in their hearts. We weren’t worthy There isn’t much that sets the Canon AE-1 and A1. The A1 is typically a more expensive camera but I think it generally has a slight edge over the AE-1 because it’s a newer camera which means it’s slightly less likely to have one of many common issues. The A1 also looks much nicer and has a much better aesthetic to the light meter.