Steve M.
Veteran
Ok, this got out of hand quickly. I had this Nikon non AI 50 2.0 lens that made great images. Modified my N8008s to shoot it in stop down mode, and went looking for a portrait lens. Wasn't happy w/ the Nikon lenses, and ordered a Leica R 90 lens w/ an adapter. After a little thought, I decided that I honestly don't want a $700 portrait lens, so I set about looking for an alternative. I had this beater FT QL Canon, so I bought two Canon FD lenses to try, a FD 135 2.5 and a FD SSC 100 2.8. The 135 tromped the 100, and I bought an FD SSC 85 1.8 to see how it stacks up to the 135. You'd think I would be set, right? Wrong.
The FT QL is a great camera, but it doesn't have a split prism focus screen, and seeing the whole image in the viewfinder is almost impossible even w/o my glasses. It has a viewfinder magnification of .9. So I bought an F-1. Great camera, and better viewfinder, but for some reason I just didn't take to it. So I bought an AE-1 Program. This little baby is the one! The viewfinder is the brightest of them all, and it has a somewhat convoluted manual mode, so that I can buy an adapter for my Nikon 50 2.0 lens and ditch the N8008s. What convinced me to keep the AE-1 was my cat Sissy. She sat down in front of me in a very nice pose, I grabbed the AE-1 w/ the lens set to A, focused, checked the aperture selection (f2.8) and fired off a shot. Took just a few seconds. W/ the other two cameras, I would have had to fiddle w/ metering and surely missed the photo op.
Pretty nutty. All I wanted in the beginning was a good budget portrait lens for my Nikon body. All's well that ends well though (even though I now have to sell a gazillion items here or on fleabay). These old Canons are really nice cameras and take great photos. The fact that you can't adapt the FD and FL lenses to many other bodies has kept the prices nice and low.
The FT QL is a great camera, but it doesn't have a split prism focus screen, and seeing the whole image in the viewfinder is almost impossible even w/o my glasses. It has a viewfinder magnification of .9. So I bought an F-1. Great camera, and better viewfinder, but for some reason I just didn't take to it. So I bought an AE-1 Program. This little baby is the one! The viewfinder is the brightest of them all, and it has a somewhat convoluted manual mode, so that I can buy an adapter for my Nikon 50 2.0 lens and ditch the N8008s. What convinced me to keep the AE-1 was my cat Sissy. She sat down in front of me in a very nice pose, I grabbed the AE-1 w/ the lens set to A, focused, checked the aperture selection (f2.8) and fired off a shot. Took just a few seconds. W/ the other two cameras, I would have had to fiddle w/ metering and surely missed the photo op.
Pretty nutty. All I wanted in the beginning was a good budget portrait lens for my Nikon body. All's well that ends well though (even though I now have to sell a gazillion items here or on fleabay). These old Canons are really nice cameras and take great photos. The fact that you can't adapt the FD and FL lenses to many other bodies has kept the prices nice and low.
