Film Bodies

This camera, like for many people before me, was my true introduction to film. I'd used some point and shoots as a child, but like for many people, this wound up being "my" first "real" film camera. "My" appears in quotations because this camera is technically on loan to me from my future father-in-law. But, as I've half-joked with him before, he ain't getting this thing back. Okay, maybe he will because they still only fetch like $50. But still, this thing is a JOY to use. It weighs nothing, the winder motor is relatively quiet and, of course, will take any EF lens you throw at it. Many will complain about its "plastickiness," including the plastic mounting ring, but I never actually minded this quality. Maybe it's because I grew up in the early 2000s and was born into the plastickiness, molded by it, while others merely adapted. I personally also love Canon's insistence, even to this day with their R series, on that "blobiness" that critics of 90's consumer design hate so much. It's smooth, light, and feels molded to your hand. And much like my other Canons, this one performs best when you let the camera do the work. You can shoot manual, but it's clearly not what this camera was meant for. The 3 focusing points, I think, serve as an excellent teaching tool for young photographers learning to compose and expose at the same time, too. It's easy to get artsy, pro-looking shots when you want, but, at the time, it was also perfect at the time for young families who might want to take their Christmas card photos themselves. 

I go on about this because I believe this is exactly how my future father-in-law, and by extension I, wound up with this camera. I never asked him outright, because that's kind of a stupid question in conversation: "hey, why did you get a camera?" But, I do know that he purchased this camera around the time he and his wife married and that he took family photos with them until film labs just about disappeared altogether in the early-mid 2000s. From then on, it sat in a camcorder bag, untouched, for 20 years, following him from home to home waiting to come out of retirement. 

My future father-in-law loaned this to after he learned that I had bought myself a Fujifilm camera - one that was designed to capture the special look of film. I like to shoot on film for the same reason I like to put on a vinyl record or even a cassette tape every once in a while. While I appreciate digital perfection, I have a lot of fun with the temperament of physical media. I'm not going to pretend it's better- just different. While I appreciate analog's "theoretically infinite" (shh... I can hear you, quantum physicists) resolution, the realities and physical limitations presented in analog media present a randomness - character, if you will- that is more important to me. I can get a technically perfect media representation with computers easily without issue. I have been able to all of my life; I don't remember when we still had the dial-up at the house that had been subscribed since before I was born. Physical media, with all of its imperfections and propensity to bend to nature and unpredictability, add a fun challenge and an appreciation for what human ingenuity was before our AI-generated hellscape we're presented with today took over. Just like driving a '69 Camero SS is a different kind of fun than a 2025 Stingray, shooting on a Rebel with a fresh roll of film is different kind of fun - a different kind of freeing. A Rebel G is definitely not like driving a classic car, though. It's more like an old Civic. Small, plucky, reliable, well-engineered; it doesn't get in your way. I immediately fell in love with it, and while I don't think it'll ever mean to me what it meant to him, what with the trips and all the photos of his loving family, but receiving this camera feels like a seminal moment; it's a moment from an otherwise normal Virginia morning that I'll probably remember forever. It felt like a warm welcome, an acceptance into the family, a symbol of trust in our relationship, receiving this camera. He held onto it and entrusted it to capture cherished memories, and it's an honor to continue that cycle.

This camera has the honor of being the first film camera I actually purchased, as opposed to being loaned or gifted. I bought it shortly after coming home with my recently lent Rebel G, deathly afraid of breaking such a cherished item. It was immediately clear to me that if I was going to have the camera of my choosing, I would want two things: EF mount and multiple metering modes. Perhaps less importantly, I've also loved the design of Canon EOS cameras. I find myself drawn to the smooth lines and curves. They look comfortable. I quickly stumbled on the Canon Elan series and got myself an Elan II from KEH. These seem to also fall into some blind spot for camera collectors and film enthusiasts. They, of course, are not as capable as an EOS 1N, if you really want to use a roll of film in 2.4-3.6 seconds, and I imagine their relative youth and curviness dissuades those spending an arm and a leg on old Leicas and AE-1s. What's more, my particular example is the regular Elan II, not the famous Elan IIe with the eye-controlled focusing control. I chose to pass on this considering there's only 3 points to choose from and the fact that it seemed like one of those 90s features that sounds really cool, but never worked right and has been lost to great big 90s consumer electronics wastebin in the sky. Apparently, it worked pretty well for many, which I guess shouldn't surprise me - this is a product aimed at enthusiasts and low-level pros from a renown camera company at the height of their game. My own father told me that he had an Elan IIe, and while the eye-control focus worked well, it didn't work for what he shoots. See my earlier comment about there only being three points to choose from and factor in that he shoots birds and wildlife, and you can see how he came to this "great, but useless" opinion I share. 

Just as my father found himself going for Canon's "step-up" model from the entry-level rebel, I found myself wanting a little more control than the Rebel offered me, but was turned off by how much the more capable models commanded - still, 25-30 years later. Browsing the Canon camera museum and KEH, the Elan II stuck out to me, in part due to its oh-so-late-90s champagne finish. I imagine that my father owned the all-black variant for a sleeker, tougher look. But the silver model combines the curvy look of Canon's industrial design with a plate painted the same color as minivans the world over, including the one I was shuttled around in. And, for me, that all only adds to the nostalgic appeal. The black painted hot shoe cover even resembles a roof rack. This camera also seems to have robust support for E-TTL flashes from Canon and other third parties well into the digital age. I imagine that not every E-TTL2 flash is compatible with the original E-TTL, however. 

In the true step-up spirit of the Elan series, this camera feels weightier than my Rebel G. While there is still a lot of plastic on the lower half of the body, again Canon has done a good job with minimizing any 'plasticy' feeling. The silver top plate certainly helps, but it's pretty clear there's still a well-engineered, metal frame under the sleek plastic facade. In fact, I've noticed a few things about this camera (as well just about every large Canon body through the R series) that harken back to the golden age of SLRs and take them to their ergonomic conclusion. If you have a relatively recent modern Canon, ignore what you hear online about them being "bulbous" looking and take a look at it from the top down. Despite a fancy LCD screen on the top and all the modern buttons and dials, they have retained the lines and edges that remind the user of a time when the shape of cameras was dictated more by the form factor of the film than the ergonomics of the human hand. Hold the camera in your hand while still looking down at it, and you might notice that your hand covers just about all of that "ugly" rounded plastic. The design is intentional and the whole thing feels nice in the hand. That doesn't make any of these cameras particularly special, especially for the time, but I find it interesting that Canon has stuck with their human-hand-first design philosophy. What I'm trying to get at is that all of the 'questionable' design choices are done in the name of making this the most comfortable tool possible. The better it feels in your hand, the more you'll pick it up, especially if you're like me and love the aesthetic. By comparison, my Fujifulm XT cameras, while undeniably sexy and hip, feel like they might as well be Argus Bricks without cases. Back in the analog world, the extra weight is also something I appreciate compared to the Rebel. The Rebel feels right at home with the 35-80mm kit lens it came with, but anything larger and the whole thing feels out of balance. This, in my opinion, is less of a problem with heaver and larger bodies.

Every article online restates how odd this period in SLR history was. I won't, here, (this is a lie- that is exactly what I'm about to do) but I will say that this oddball status has made this one my personal favorite cameras of all time. From the pessimist's view, this camera is a model of 80s trickle-down compromise as far as consumer devices are concerned. It falls in a weird middle ground before Autofocus and n-1 metering points and the like, but after the so-called """real""" photographer's golden age of Manual metering. The overall sentiment on this camera online is- "why bother?" It doesn't have the street cred of an AE-1, nor does it have any particularly advanced features. It also features a very odd lower-limiting shutter speed mechanism that is very easy to turn on and not nearly 'smart' enough to be useful. I use a shutter speed lock on my digital bodies all the time since I can usually resurrect details from RAW files to an extent, but shooting film is almost exactly like shooting JPEG backwards - you get what you get, anything further is lost. I can satisfyingly handhold shots down to speeds lower than the built-in shutter lock, so I wind up with many slightly mildly underexposed shots if I've accidentally turned it on. EF lenses could have easily sent data about the focal length of the lens and follow the 1/focal length formula. It also does not feature a threaded shutter release; you have to buy a bespoke Canon remote. The features and controls it boasts are also clouded with this compromise sentiment. The controls make it extremely clear that this camera was designed to be used more like the earlier beginner-friendly Canon T50 and later EOS cameras, where the camera and its computers are doing the hard work, not the photographer. It's almost an omen to what Canon would bring with the EOS line- alienating the shrinking market of manual-only photographers- and its whole line of bodies and lenses- and the ergonomic controls they demanded for a new type of ergonomics for the brain. So, it doesn't attract the """serious""" photographer as much.

So, while I said I wouldn't dwell on the odd market position of this camera, that is exactly what I have done because its context defines both every quirk and amazing thing about this camera. I've noted a lot of quirks with this camera that I think would drive most people crazy. But, this is not best viewed as a stop-gap camera before ever-better computers, sensors, and motors were crammed inside of cameras - it deserves better. Instead, think of this as a different class of camera entirely - a manual point and shoot camera. It feels more like a spiritual successor to the Argus C3 and other manual, budget rangefinders. Changing the shutter speed on this camera is done with buttons or automatically, so you'll almost never touch the shutter speed settings without a flashgun. Earlier cameras with mechanical timing mechanisms - while they do support some lower shutter speeds, these are more for flashguns and speedlights than controlling exposure. Most of the time with those older cameras, you're going to set it to either 1/100 or 1/300 and leave it there. Maybe you'll switch between the two if the cloud change, but there's not much of a reason to touch it unless you're making a deliberate choice. Of course, your ISO is locked to your film, so what is there for you to do on the camera itself as the photographer other than focus and aperture?

I realize that, of course, something like the Canon AE-1 or a Pentax K1000 will get you the full manual control dials with shutter speeds up to 1/2000 or whatever, but more options demand more on-the-fly thinking and measuring to get the perfect shot. This camera was not marketed as another one of those cameras. What you get is a camera that is as capable as an older SLR with a motor drive, but only requires about skillset to use something like the aforementioned "Brick." - Except, it's 1 step easier given the FD's automatic aperture support. Given that those older manual SLRs often go for way, way more than even some DSLRs, the T70 presents itself as quite the value proposition for those looking to get into film and older cameras in general.

And speaking of FD lenses and aperture, this camera has my favorite viewfinder of any of my cameras. It's bright, clear, and has such a clever focusing aid. I believe the aid is standard for the time - there's a split-image surrounded by a micoprism rangefinder and further surrounded by a matte screen. This seems like it would be a standard setup, but it's so wonderfully executed and so bright, it blows the doors off of any EVF and makes manual focusing "make sense." I'll never be as fast as a modern AF system, of course, but after some practice I was finally able to see why a lack of autofocus would, in fact, not be a complete turn off of vintage camera gear.

Indeed, I picked my copy from KEH in "bargain" condition for under $40. A bargain indeed! Apart from some minor paint chips on some of the hard corners of the all-plastic (but, like my 50mm FD lens, not plastic-y) shell, the thing is in great condition. The color, shape, font, and, especially the design of handgrip, have a very cool Night Rider spy-movie vibe, too. And, this thing is seriously compact. I imagine this camera would have been popular amongst photojournalists at the time given its compact size and auto-exposure controls, but I have nothing to back that up. In any event, it feels great in the hand. Weighty, but not heavy. Dense, I think, is a better term for it. It looks classically 80s-boxy, but it's surprisingly comfortable to hold, even with a heavy lens, despite the handgrip feeling like it is made out of the same rubber used to pad handrails on buses. Thankfully it's held up; it hasn't gone sticky, so I think that only adds to the retro-80s charm. If you're looking for those 'vintage vibes' from your shots - you might as well shoot on a period correct camera and fully immerse yourself in the experience. Oh, and the motor drive, while slow even for its day, makes such a satisfying noise. Kuh-Churrrrr. I highly advise anyone looking to get into vintage cameras to take a look at this before you go back further in SLR history. Don't pass it up because it's just not old enough to be cool yet. I personally like the semi-computerized operation since it acts like an assistant more than anything else. If I want to fiddle with full manual controls, a fully features SLR is a bit much. I'd rather shoot like that with something a little simpler and, in my opinion, a little more interesting than the high-precision, opportunity maximizing tools that SLRs are...

...Like this one! I don't quite know where to start with this camera other than how lucky I was to stumble upon mine. My fiancée and I share a fascination with old and/or antique stuff. Furniture yes, but a lot more. We love spending weekends browsing antique malls and the like, not only for inspiration for our own home, but to see if we stumble across anything interesting. As we all know, America has a wastefulness problem in its culture, and when things just don't suit people's needs anymore or is just not interesting to them anymore, to thrift stores, garage sales, and antique malls all this great, still perfectly usable and attractive stuff goes. Oh yeah, there's a ton of crap to sift through, but as anyone who loves a good bargain hunt or antiquing trip will tell you, your patience is rewarded. We're not looking for, nor in the position financially for say, an original Eames chair or something like that. But often mixed in with the high-ticket Louis XVI chairs (and worthless garbage, for lack of better term) are delightfully down to earth goods that are well constructed and have been maintained.

On one of these trips, I spotted curious black box with two lenses - A TLR, and it looked clean. Old Brownies any and cheap top-down reflex-finder cameras are easy to come by, but this one stood out to me because it was clearly something more. What was even better was that whoever was selling this camera only price checked against untested ebay listings. At this point, I had never bought a camera from an antique store or anywhere, for that matter, that wasn't explicitly a used camera shop. It was also the first time I seriously considered purchasing a camera without knowing anything about it other than what I could discern just by looking at the outside of the thing. It looked relatively clean even looking at it closely, and the shutter fired. The finder screen looked like it could use a wipe down, but how hard could taking apart a consumer good from the 50s be? It's not like I was at risk of frying an autofocus motor or messing with anything computer controlled. On top of all this - and this is completely unrelated to any camera's usability, but it smelled amazing, too. There's a lubricant or something that likes to off gas from things made during the height of the 20th century, and it's one of the things that really stands out to me at, say, a military museum. It brings back childhood memories of airshows and family members with old cars. So, I scooped my prize like someone was going to steal it out of my hands and took a chance. It certainly wasn't anything fancy, and even if it turned out to not work right, my fiancée and I decided it would be a cool item to display on a shelf until I could get it fixed.

I found that there's quite the cult following for these post-war Yashica (and other Japanese import) cameras. What's more, this one in particular was aimed at first-time and budget conscious buyers, yet included a lens that was completely overkill for the prints people would have been making with this at the time. This camera would have run you about $30 at its launch (around $300-$400 in 2025, depending on who you ask) and was designed to make 6cm x 6cm contact prints- comparable to a polaroid in size. Yet, this lens easily carries this camera's images well into the digital age. The incredible lens sharpness and small gain size on modern medium format films allows you to take incredibly detailed scans. My particular example is host to a Yashikor 80mm f/3.5 lens that provides beautiful rendering at all apertures. Beautiful swirled bokeh at the wider apertures with more than acceptable sharpness give way to a stunning amount of clarity when stopped down. Yashica touted this model as their "value" option, and while it may not have any fancy features to speak of (no self timer, limited shutter speeds, fully manual spooling with a simple "ruby" window to tell you what frame you're on), I can completely understand anyone who, to this day, picks an example of this model up over more expensive models whose value has held up better. Let's be honest with ourselves, from a modern perspective. How much more are you actually getting in 2025 with the extra features the more expensive models at the time offered?

My particular example seems to still need a little work on the internals- it seems that the film is rubbing against something hard inside the camera that is scratching the emulsion layer.

This camera was another antique store find. I was on the lookout for something that was relatively small, something that I could carry around with me for ~the vibes~. Lo, and behold, I found a filthy old Argus C3 in its case. I almost forgot this camera was called the brick, since it was clearly designed to be used inside the molded leather case. My particular copy dates back to the turn of the 40s into the 50s. I like to imagine that whoever was selling this camera found it in an old box in their parents' attic. I think it would be a reasonable assumption that, given this was a budget offering even in its day, someone bought this in the spirit that my father-in-law bought his beloved Rebel G. Perhaps the original owner was recently married and bought a house in those newfangled suburbs. Maybe he heard about the camera from his buddies back in the war. Or, maybe this purchased by an aspiring photographer looking to get their feet wet. Hell, maybe this thing went with someone to Korea and back. I'll never know, but that makes these kinds of thoughts so fun to let run wild.

In any event, I'm still learning about this camera and haven't quite gotten through a roll yet. I'm very interested to see if I have completely thrown the rangefinder out of spec from my attempts to clean everything that light will go through. It seems like the composing window will be forever cloudy, but at least the split image focusing aid is clear enough after some Glob Mops and Isopropanol therapy. And oh yeah, this camera also has that distinctive Cold War smell also emanating from the Yashica; intoxicating.