farlymac
PF McFarland
Picked one of these up fairly cheap, or I would have waited a while to get one. After getting very nice pictures from the Canon Sure Shot Zoom XL, I heard that this model gave comparable results, and when I did a search, this one popped up ready to go.
The Sure Shot Classic 120 is a retro looking model introduced in September 1999, and was also marketed as the Prima Super 120 (Europe), and the Autoboy 120 (Japan). It has a brushed aluminum body shell with dark grey rubber matt around the lens, and a dark grey plastic back.
It has a longer zoom, a 3.2x 38-120mm as opposed to 38-85mm for the Zoom XL. And, it fits in a shirt pocket! Apertures are f4.5-10.9, and the lens has 7 elements in 6 groups, with one element being Aspheric. Auto-focusing is by a Hybrid System.
The Shutter is Programmed Electromagnetic with "Real Time Release". Speeds are 2 Seconds to 1/770, with a Night Scene mode of 4 seconds. There is a Self Timer also.
The flash deploys from the left side of the top, zooms with the lens, and it's functions can be changed from a nifty covered control panel on the back of the camera. It is Automatic with and without Red-Eye Reduction, and can be manually turned off (except in Close-up Mode), and has a range of 0.6 to 4.1 meters.
This panel also has the controls for setting the Self Timer, Continuous Exposure Drive, Metering, Date Stamp, Captions, and Mid-Roll Rewind. There is also a rotary Master Control switch on the back of the camera that turns the power on, and selects Auto, Action Mode, Night Mode, Portrait, Close-up, Spot Meter, and Personal settings. The personal setting is great when you don't want to have to program the camera every time you turn it on, such as when you stop along the road to take a picture, and then again a few minutes later, and so on (while turning off the camera between stops).
The Zoom Controls are on the upper right rear of the camera, and the Viewfinder has ready lights for exposure and flash, plus a diopter adjustment. It also zooms with the lens from 0.43x to 1.36x, and has 84% coverage.
Exposure control is Auto Program AE, with 3 Zones, and a Spot Meter selection. The ISO range is 25-3200 via DX coding on the film cartridge.
Manual exposure compensation is +/-1.5 Stops, in .5 stop increments, while Backlighting is adjustable to +1.5 Stops.
The Film Transport is Auto-Loading and Rewind, with a Mid-Roll rewind, and has a Continuous Mode of 1 Frame Per Second, and 1.5 FPS in Action Mode.
The camera is powered by two CR-2 3VDC Lithium cells.
It's a great little camera, and has what I need for an everyday film camera, being pocketable, and having a decent zoom lens. And Canon designed it so that there is very little protrusion from the front of the camera when the lens is stored. The round viewfinder port on the front reminds me of the P and 7 models rangefinder port, with the AF detectors hiding behind a viewfinder shaped panel.
This particular camera has one fault. When I got it, it had dead batteries in it, and sometimes when that happens, the electronics get set in their ways, and don't want to co-operate when you power the camera back up. Usually after a few cycles of turning the camera on and off, and taking the batteries out a couple of times, it straightens out on its own. This camera was no different in that respect, but one thing does not work right yet. When loading a film, it doesn't want to auto-load. I thought, "Great, a dead winder". But when I opened the back of the camera to remove the film, it started winding. So I rewound it after shooting a couple of frames (this was with one of my reused 'Test' rolls), and loaded it again. Still no auto-wind until you open the back. The third time, I just popped the back and closed it quickly, and everything was fine. So that is the process I need to go through when loading the camera. Luckily, the auto-rewinding works as it's supposed to. So, it's a minor inconvenience, but not what you would expect from a "Mint, possibly un-used" camera. You should have seen the "Mint" I had to clean off the outside. And not to mention the seller sent me the wrong camera the first time. But I've got one now, and it out did the Nikon One Touch Zoom 90 by a mile. It's still not quite up to the image quality of the Canon Sure Shot Zoom XL, but it weighs a lot less, with more features, and a longer zoom.
PF
Zoom Range by br1078phot, on Flickr
Comparison shots of the 38-120mm zoom lens. Yeah, I know, I got them backwards. Notice how the 120mm setting looks a bit washed out. This camera exhibits very poor judgment on exposures, but it's not something that can't be fixed in post-processing.
Green Ridge In Autumn by br1078phot, on Flickr
Not much color this year, due to the drought.
BrushyMountain by br1078phot, on Flickr
Here is one thing the Zoom XL has over the Classic 120...an Infinity Lock. The mountain is out of focus because the camera selected the near foreground, and with the slowness of the lens at telephoto lengths, infinity suffers.
Too Dark by br1078phot, on Flickr
Love that background, but what happened to the foreground? I think the sky really fooled the auto exposure on this one.
Color Along Dutch Oven Road by br1078phot, on Flickr
Ah, finally found a nice spot. Some exposure adjustments needed on these, as they were slightly over.
Autumn Bounty by br1078phot, on Flickr
Testing the Close-Up setting. The flash comes on automatically, and there is no way to shut it off. The offset frame marks in the viewfinder are very accurate, as this is from the right side of the negative, exactly where I planned it. I did a square crop as the rest of the negative was only interesting to me in a technical sense, and the square made more sense artistically.
For all the shots from the set, click on the link below.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7699588@N07/sets/72157627830583089/
Pics of the camera to follow.
The Sure Shot Classic 120 is a retro looking model introduced in September 1999, and was also marketed as the Prima Super 120 (Europe), and the Autoboy 120 (Japan). It has a brushed aluminum body shell with dark grey rubber matt around the lens, and a dark grey plastic back.
It has a longer zoom, a 3.2x 38-120mm as opposed to 38-85mm for the Zoom XL. And, it fits in a shirt pocket! Apertures are f4.5-10.9, and the lens has 7 elements in 6 groups, with one element being Aspheric. Auto-focusing is by a Hybrid System.
The Shutter is Programmed Electromagnetic with "Real Time Release". Speeds are 2 Seconds to 1/770, with a Night Scene mode of 4 seconds. There is a Self Timer also.
The flash deploys from the left side of the top, zooms with the lens, and it's functions can be changed from a nifty covered control panel on the back of the camera. It is Automatic with and without Red-Eye Reduction, and can be manually turned off (except in Close-up Mode), and has a range of 0.6 to 4.1 meters.
This panel also has the controls for setting the Self Timer, Continuous Exposure Drive, Metering, Date Stamp, Captions, and Mid-Roll Rewind. There is also a rotary Master Control switch on the back of the camera that turns the power on, and selects Auto, Action Mode, Night Mode, Portrait, Close-up, Spot Meter, and Personal settings. The personal setting is great when you don't want to have to program the camera every time you turn it on, such as when you stop along the road to take a picture, and then again a few minutes later, and so on (while turning off the camera between stops).
The Zoom Controls are on the upper right rear of the camera, and the Viewfinder has ready lights for exposure and flash, plus a diopter adjustment. It also zooms with the lens from 0.43x to 1.36x, and has 84% coverage.
Exposure control is Auto Program AE, with 3 Zones, and a Spot Meter selection. The ISO range is 25-3200 via DX coding on the film cartridge.
Manual exposure compensation is +/-1.5 Stops, in .5 stop increments, while Backlighting is adjustable to +1.5 Stops.
The Film Transport is Auto-Loading and Rewind, with a Mid-Roll rewind, and has a Continuous Mode of 1 Frame Per Second, and 1.5 FPS in Action Mode.
The camera is powered by two CR-2 3VDC Lithium cells.
It's a great little camera, and has what I need for an everyday film camera, being pocketable, and having a decent zoom lens. And Canon designed it so that there is very little protrusion from the front of the camera when the lens is stored. The round viewfinder port on the front reminds me of the P and 7 models rangefinder port, with the AF detectors hiding behind a viewfinder shaped panel.
This particular camera has one fault. When I got it, it had dead batteries in it, and sometimes when that happens, the electronics get set in their ways, and don't want to co-operate when you power the camera back up. Usually after a few cycles of turning the camera on and off, and taking the batteries out a couple of times, it straightens out on its own. This camera was no different in that respect, but one thing does not work right yet. When loading a film, it doesn't want to auto-load. I thought, "Great, a dead winder". But when I opened the back of the camera to remove the film, it started winding. So I rewound it after shooting a couple of frames (this was with one of my reused 'Test' rolls), and loaded it again. Still no auto-wind until you open the back. The third time, I just popped the back and closed it quickly, and everything was fine. So that is the process I need to go through when loading the camera. Luckily, the auto-rewinding works as it's supposed to. So, it's a minor inconvenience, but not what you would expect from a "Mint, possibly un-used" camera. You should have seen the "Mint" I had to clean off the outside. And not to mention the seller sent me the wrong camera the first time. But I've got one now, and it out did the Nikon One Touch Zoom 90 by a mile. It's still not quite up to the image quality of the Canon Sure Shot Zoom XL, but it weighs a lot less, with more features, and a longer zoom.
PF
Zoom Range by br1078phot, on Flickr
Comparison shots of the 38-120mm zoom lens. Yeah, I know, I got them backwards. Notice how the 120mm setting looks a bit washed out. This camera exhibits very poor judgment on exposures, but it's not something that can't be fixed in post-processing.
Green Ridge In Autumn by br1078phot, on Flickr
Not much color this year, due to the drought.
BrushyMountain by br1078phot, on Flickr
Here is one thing the Zoom XL has over the Classic 120...an Infinity Lock. The mountain is out of focus because the camera selected the near foreground, and with the slowness of the lens at telephoto lengths, infinity suffers.
Too Dark by br1078phot, on Flickr
Love that background, but what happened to the foreground? I think the sky really fooled the auto exposure on this one.
Color Along Dutch Oven Road by br1078phot, on Flickr
Ah, finally found a nice spot. Some exposure adjustments needed on these, as they were slightly over.
Autumn Bounty by br1078phot, on Flickr
Testing the Close-Up setting. The flash comes on automatically, and there is no way to shut it off. The offset frame marks in the viewfinder are very accurate, as this is from the right side of the negative, exactly where I planned it. I did a square crop as the rest of the negative was only interesting to me in a technical sense, and the square made more sense artistically.
For all the shots from the set, click on the link below.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7699588@N07/sets/72157627830583089/
Pics of the camera to follow.
Last edited by a moderator:
