Are values for the original Canon F1 plummeting?

[Mackinaw]

How does the 55 compare to the FD 50mm 1.2L? Thanks

In my experience the 55/1.2 AL is a tad better than the 50/1.2L. Just a bit more contrast and a bit sharper wide-open than the 50/1.2L. Stop down a few stops and there's no difference in performance. The 50/1.2L is much smaller and lighter than the 55/1.2 AL though.

Jim B.

 

[Traut]

Thanks Jim

I bought the 50 for a Lake Placid F1. I am using it on my GF1 more though.


Thanks
HT

 

[lmd91343]

I hope their prices are plummeting - I'd like to get an F1 to go with my FTbN. I need a nice Canon FD 28 & 100 too but that's a different game 🙂

William

Your fortune, my misfortune.

 

[lmd91343]

...where did you hear, read, or otherwise learn that the Canon 55mm FD lens is superior to Leica? In my experience those lenses were not even close to the Summicrons or Summiluxes of their day.

Mr. Puts .

 

[lmd91343]

The 50/1.2L is much smaller and lighter than the 55/1.2 AL though.

Ain't that the truth!

 

[LeicaTom]

I STILL shoot with my F-1 Mech, with a f1.4/50 on it....would like a f1.2, but it's not that important as my Leica gear is, (I have a f1.2 LTM on my M8) ~ the F-1 is still a great camera to use, and I have a special made neck strap that makes the camera lighter around the neck more comfortable to use.

I still think that minty versions of the cam with the f1.2 55mm Asph will command a nice price together, but finding really clean early bodies, is'nt easy, mine has the dents and wear to show it 🙂

Tom

 

[wlewisiii]

Your fortune, my misfortune.

There is, of course, much truth to that. I wish I could offer you a fair price for your F1 but the reality is that I don't have one now because I can't really afford them even at the current price. If I could, I'd give one a great home but what good does that do you?

The worst of it is that I sold off my Canon gear a bit more than a year ago to finance my IIIf. While I love the Leica, I did miss my Canon gear so I picked up a beautiful condition black FTbN and 50/1.8. It had problems so I had it CLA'd & the meter adjusted & it's probably good for another 40 years. But I don't even have any other Canon glass for it right now. I'd love to find another 50/1.4 SSC and another 35/2 SSC or 100/2.8 nFD like I had but it's not going to happen soon. Even still, I'd rather use that old FTbN than any other SLR I've owned bar one - a T90 I used to have.

William

 

[Pickett Wilson]

I ordered a little kit from somebody on ebay to fix the squeak. Takes about 10 minutes. Fixed up a like new A1 just great. I like the A1 a lot, and the MA motor really makes it a nice package. Wish I had one of those 50 f/1.2 L lenses!

 

[varjag]

None other than Erwin Puts. http://www.imx.nl/photo/optics/optics/page81.html

If you read the article, you'll notice that he compares it only to original noctilux. Long jump from there to "better than anything Leica ever made".

 

[ZeissFan]

I tend to think that camera prices, and especially for specific models, can be cyclical. And for no reason, it often seems.

For a while, Retina prices were high. Now, they're not.

Rolleiflexes were bargains for a while. I got two nice Automats for about $150 each. In fact, I never paid more than $175 for any Automat, and I picked up a Rolleiflex T once for $160. Then the price for the T went out of sight. I haven't looked for a while, so I don't know the current price.

It's inexplicable and baffling at times.

 

[dogberryjr]

If you read the article, you'll notice that he compares it only to original noctilux. Long jump from there to "better than anything Leica ever made".

I said no such thing.

 

[varjag]

I concur, it was the original poster.

 

[ron1945]

desqueak!

desqueak!

I ordered a little kit from somebody on ebay to fix the squeak. Takes about 10 minutes. Fixed up a like new A1 just great. I like the A1 a lot, and the MA motor really makes it a nice package. Wish I had one of those 50 f/1.2 L lenses!

can you remember the name of the seller? have looked for that kit on ebay for ages without any luck be obliged if you can

 

[xayraa33]

The original Canon F1 was built like a brick sh1thouse but my OM 1 is nicer to carry all day long.
Anyone else think that the original F1 was even more solid than Nikon's legendary F SLR ?

 

[lmd91343]

The original Canon F1 was built like a brick sh1thouse but my OM 1 is nicer to carry all day long.
Anyone else think that the original F1 was even more solid than Nikon's legendary F SLR ?

I don't know if this is a good measure, but a quick check of KEH "as-is" section shows 13 broken Nikon F1, F2, F3, F4 bodies. The Canon count for the F1, F1n, F1N series is 1 broken body and that is a flash synchronization problem. Did Nikon make 13 times as many professional SLRs as Canon. I think not. It appears Nikon's failure rate on their high end cameras is significantly higher.

I am not trying to start a Canon/Nikon flame war.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

I don't know if this is a good measure, but a quick check of KEH "as-is" section shows 13 broken Nikon F1, F2, F3, F4 bodies. The Canon count for the F1, F1n, F1N series is 1 broken body and that is a flash synchronization problem. Did Nikon make 13 times as many professional SLRs as Canon. I think not. It appears Nikon's failure rate on their high end cameras is significantly higher.

I am not trying to start a Canon/Nikon flame war.

Actually Nikon's were overwhelmingly more popular with professionals until the digital era, when Canon and Nikon switched places. Nikon used to advertise back in the film days that 9 out of 10 professionals who shoot 35mm (many pros shot only medium or large format) used Nikon. I think that was probably close to true based on the hundreds of pros I have known over the years. Today, with digital, Canon is much more popular than Nikon among pros, though its not as lopsided as it was in the film days. I'd say 2 out of 3 pros using digital SLRs use a canon EOS digital.

 

[amateriat]

I suppose we can all blame Minolta for this whole mess. 🙂

Reasons? (1) Minolta was the first to abandon the lens mount it built its previous system on (MC/MD) for its autofocus A mount (which lives on, digitally speaking, via Sony), and (2) together with the Maxxum 7000, was a runaway hit that caught everyone literally off-guard. Whereas everyone else made tepid toe-dips into the AF SLR world with modified versions of existing bodies and one or two AF lenses, Minolta basically bet the farm with a full-on, from-the-ground-up camera and lens system. (The "betting the farm" part, in this case, was far more than poetic: Minolta had long been the "weak sister" among the majors, and rather desperately needed another "hit." This was also the impetus for the earlier X700, which was to Minolta what the original Taurus was to Ford in the 1980s: literally a do-or-die proposition. Had these cameras failed on the market, Minolta might have left the camera scene a lot longer ago than they did.)

Okay...where was I?...Canon and Nikon got snookered badly, and had to speed-up whatever AF camera plans they had cooking in R & D. Nikon managed to do it while preserving their F mount, with a caveat or two; Canon decided to follow Minolta's lead and ditch the FD system (My slightly tongue-in-cheek gripe to a Canon rep at the time: "So this means you're never going to tell me what that "Reserved Pin" on the back of most of my FD lenses was going to be used for?") for their EF mount, named, ironically enough, after one of their more interesting FD-mount cameras (and which I foolishly traded away for an A-1...nope, not gonna talk about it now...)

Which, of course, brings us all to where we are now. But look at this way: if you think Canon's FD-based stuff is depressed in price, try pricing Minolta's MC/MD stuff right now, with the possible exception of, say, a clean, late-model MC 57mm f/1.2, mounted on, say, a clean, working XK Motor. Just don't tell me you have one for sale, okay!?


- Barrett