Canon AE-1

In an earlier post I mentioned that my first camera was a Minolta Hi-Matic 7sii. After a while I started to feel that I was a bit limited by this camera and its fixed 40mm fixed lens. To be honest I think that I just really wanted an interchangeable lens SLR. I was fascinated by the Canon A-1 and it’s electronic wizardry, but I couldn’t afford one at the time. So I bought a second hand Canon AE-1. It worked well enough but it wasn’t in terrific condition cosmetically. It served me well for years though. About 30 years later I took it out. The light seals had deteriorated and the “gunk” had managed to get all over the mirror. I also found two 50mm f1.8 FD lenses. I have no idea why I had two. The apertures on both were completely frozen. After checking around I found that AE-1’s are not particularly expensive. So I bought an AE-1 body and a couple of lenses and also the A-1 body that I had always wanted. Lovely camera – but that’s a topic for another post. I still didn’t throw away the old AE-1 body though. Maybe one day I’d find a way to clean it. So it sat around in a bag. The lower level of our house recently flooded and one of the items affected was the old Canon AE-1, which was soaked. The insurance gave me $120 to replace it. I’m not entirely sure that the pictures below were taken with this camera. It was either this one or the Minolta and I don’t think I would have been able to get this close with the Minolta – so I’m guessing it was the Canon.