This, and four other cameras, were given to me by an old friend (see: Cameras Galore). It’s a Canon EOS Elan IIe, also known as the EOS-55-P in Japan and the EOS 50e everywhere else. Launched in September, 1995 it was a mid-range camera (with the single digit professional cameras above it and the ‘Rebel’ series below). It looks quite different from other Canon cameras and many seem to consider it to be among the best looking of all Canon cameras.
A significant feature of this camera was it’s Eye-controlled Autofocus function: you can select an autofocus point just by looking at it. I tried it out and it worked fine, but I generally use the centre point and then lock and recompose so I have little occasion to use it.
I won’t get into the major features of this camera. There’s a very good overview here for those who are interested.
I liked using the camera. Compared to the EOS 650 I used last month (See: March film camera – Canon EOS 650) it felt less sold, more “plasticky”, but I guess that’s just the way cameras evolved between 1987 and 1995.
I did have one problem though. I took it to a local antiques fair (see pictures below) to try it out. It worked fine until I got towards the end of the roll and then suddenly refused to take pictures. I suspect this was because I had taken the battery from another camera which uses the same batteries. It had been there for some time. Then I spend quite a lot of time playing with the various functions of the camera. It’s possible that all of this wore the battery down. What was annoying was that it didn’t stop working completely. It still metered and focused, but when I pressed the shutter nothing happened. I haven’t tried the camera since then so I don’t know if fresh batteries will solve the problem, or if something more serious is happening. I hope it’s the former because I rather liked the camera.
For more posts related to this camera see:
Chinese Garden – Lasdon Park and Arboretum
The man in the mirror.
Geese.
Boots on a bucket.
Old doll.
Saxophone.
Picture frame.