Spec Summary

Format: 35mm.

Name: Canon officially calls the camera the Canonet G-III 17, but you’ll often see it referred to as the Canonet G-III QL17 or the Canonet QL17 G-III. These are all the same camera. It’s a finger full to type though, so reviewers have gotten into the habit of also writing “Canonet QL17,” but that technically refers to the previous generation of the camera. The “G-III” is the crucial part if you are searching online listings to buy one.

Dates: Manufactured from 1972 to 1982. So any G-III QL17 you buy today will be older than most every seminal hair metal album, including Def Leppard’s Pyromania, but I promise that old age won’t get in the way of taking a great photograph.

Current cost and availability: The Canonet series was very popular—so much so that Canon sold around 1.2 million units of the G-III QL17. That is good news for current shoppers because there is a bunch of used stock available. The bad news is that a lot of the cameras have sticky shutters and crumbling light seals, so unless you know what to look for, stick to a trusted retailer that has properly checked out, repaired, and described the camera. I got mine three years ago for $150. Prices have gone up since then (a testament to the resurgence of 35mm photography); a comparable copy goes for nearly $200 now. I still see them from $25 to $75 on eBay and Etsy, but the big kahunas of used gear—B&H, Adorama, and KEH—usually list them in the $100 to $200 range. Be aware that the rare black version of the G-III QL17 is much desired and will thus command a cash premium. The chrome version is more readily available and will make your bank account happier.

Price update 2023: Prices for this camera are still all over the place, with some bodies being suspiciously inexpensive. I would run away from anything with a low price and that isn’t from one of the major retailers. A good body will set you back $250ish now.

Price update 2024: Like for the majority of used film cameras, prices for this Canonet are increasing. KEH is selling a bargain-graded, much-coveted black version for $350. Yikes. Prices for chrome bodies still vary quite a bit, but expect to pay at least $200 for a good copy.

Price update 2025: Still over two hundred bucks for a working body in good shape.

Autofocus: Nope. All Canonets are manual focus rangefinders. The rangefinder patch—the part of the viewfinder that shows what is in or out of focus—seems small to me, but it is bright and more than adequate for street photography and family snapshots.

Lens: All Canonets have fixed lenses. The “17” in the G-III QL17’s name refers to the camera’s 40mm f/1.7 lens. It is quite nice and sharp, and the 40mm focal length is a happy compromise between street photography’s standard 35mm and 50mm options. 40mm is actually closer to what the human eye naturally sees, so if you haven’t used a 40mm before, it won’t take you long to get comfortable.

Battery: Ah, here now is the rub. The camera originally used a single PX625, a 1.35-volt mercury battery that is no longer available in the United States (mercury batteries in general are banned in the U.S. and many other countries). In the past, some photographers opted to use the 1.5-volt alkaline equivalent, but that hotter battery would throw off the camera’s metering. The good news is that a 1.35-volt Wein zinc-air battery is now available for 5 bucks. The really good news, though, is that the rest of the camera works just fine without a battery. If you can live without the meter, you can avoid all the battery woe.

Weight and construction: Back in the day, the Canonets were considered consumer-level cameras, the kind of kit that parents and grandparents took on vacation to record family memories. Some modern pro cameras can only wish to be so well made today and might blush at the impressive metal construction of the merely “consumer” Canonet. The camera is comparatively small but deceptively dense and sturdy. It weighs 620 grams or 1.36 pounds or a little more than Canon’s 50mm f/1.2 lens.

Light meter: Yes. But it only works in shutter priority and only if you have a battery installed. Metering is reportedly accurate, but I’ve never actually bothered to use the meter because I prefer shooting manual exposure.

Max shutter speed: 1/500. This is quite slow by today’s standards, and it might affect your ability to shoot wide open on sunny days.

Flash sync speed: All. The G-III QL17’s lens has a leaf shutter, so it syncs at all speeds, even the max of 1/500.

Film advance and rewind: Both are manual, but loading film is quicker than rewinding courtesy of Canon’s quick loading (QL) system. Film advances by a solid-feeling, smooth-moving lever.

User Manual: Most of us don’t want to even think about looking at a manual, but old film cameras can be bizarre beasts to tame if you are coming from a lifetime of digital shooting. Just grab a G-III QL17 PDF from the bitchin’ and benevolent Butkus. It will come in handy.

Background

In 1937, the company that would eventually become the mighty Canon was just a camera upstart producing Leica-influenced (i.e., copied) rangefinders. A whole lot of rangefinders. And many of them were pretty high-end and popular.

Inevitably, though, the camera market began to change in the late-1950s as more professional and enthusiast photographers gravitated toward SLRs. Canon kept pace by introducing its first SLR in 1959 but didn’t abandon rangefinders entirely. Instead, the company went down range and began producing in 1961 the Canonets, a series of rangefinders aimed at the general public—dads and moms and grandparents who didn’t need or want the latest and greatest tech in an expensive SLR.

That strategy worked beautifully. Canon was rewarded with excellent sales, so much so that by 1969 Canonet marketing material boasted about being “the best selling camera series in the world.”

Despite the marketing hyperbole, the Canonets did genuinely shake up the industry because they were inexpensive for what was offered: fast lenses, well-made bodies, and accurate autoexposure abilities. Canon would ride the cash wave for over 20 years by eventually producing three series (14 models) of Canonets. The G-III QL17 is part of the third and final line; it remains the most coveted camera of the bunch, especially the rare black edition.

Loading Film (Quickly!)

The QL in the the camera’s name stands for “quick loading,” but “quick” here is relative: it’s not as quick as the EOS-1N’s more modern and automated film loading and advance, but compared to other fully manual cameras, the Canonet is without question easier and faster.

Canon’s QL system is essentially a flat plate that covers the film leader. It ensures that your film lies flat as it advances. Just roll the film leader to the red mark, and close the QL plate. You don’t need to thread film into a spool because the intricate QL internals take care of all that for you.

Close the camera’s back cover, and begin winding the film with the advance lever. On the back of the Canonet, a small transport indicator with red and white bars rotates as the film advances. The red on mine, however, has completely faded, and I imagine it must be the same for a lot of cameras out there. No worries though: as long as the advance lever can be cocked, the film is advancing correctly. When the lever stops, your first frame is ready to shoot.

Rewinding Film

The process is all manual and is as quick (or slow) as your hands can move. After you’ve shot your last frame, push the small button on the bottom of the camera. The button releases the film rewinder. Lift the small handle on the rewinder and crank away; a small arrow on the handle indicates the direction to turn. It’s a nice touch.

The Good Stuff

The camera’s look and size are absolutely adorable. So that you can see exactly how compact the camera really is, here’s the Canonet sandwiched between a Fuji X-Pro2 and an iPhone 6S, two tidy bits of kit themselves.

The camera also feels good—though not excellent—in the hand. If I could design a brand-new QL17 just for myself, I’d make it about one-half inch longer for better balance and weight distribution, but it might be perfect for you as is.

Shutter sound is very quiet compared to the racket made by fully auto cameras like the Canon EOS 650 and EOS-1N. Current mirrorless digital cameras with an electronic shutter are truly silent, but for 35mm shooting, the Canonet is certainly stealthy enough to be your first-choice camera for street and candids. Check out our vid below of the shutter sound.

The Canonet’s 40mm lens is generally considered quite lovely—slim size, bright aperture, and sharp optics. Some even say Leica sharp. I can’t say that for sure, for I have yet to shoot with a Leica lens…but the humble Canonet reaching those lofty heights does seem to be a stretch. The lens, however, is definitely nice. It won’t hold you back from producing the best images you can.

The throw on the focusing lever is short, thus allowing a shooter to swiftly move between the minimum focusing distance of 2.6 feet to infinity. A lens with a short focus throw isn’t desirable for cinematography, which requires exact incremental focus adjustments, but for street photography and zone focusing, it’s great.

The Sucky Stuff

The main source of suck is not the lens but literally everything around it on the lens barrel. The aperture ring is stepless (like the aperture ring on a cinema lens), which is cool, but it’s difficult to turn. At least two fingers on either side of the aperture ring and a death grip on the camera are definitely required.

As you turn the aperture ring, your fingers will hit the self-timer and ASA “levers.” Well, Canon calls them “levers.” They are actually little pieces of unforgiving stabby metal. I recognize and appreciate that the camera is small and lens designers could do only so much to cram everything on it, but there is no way the Canonet was tested with real manual shooting in mind.

You can, of course, avoid the aperture issues entirely by shooting in shutter priority, which is really what the camera was made for (the light meter for example works only in shutter priority). A possible problem there for modern photographers is that shutter speeds can be selected only in whole stops: 1/4 to 1/500. I like that simplicity, but it takes some getting used to.

Also, if you do shoot in shutter priority and want to use the light meter, the camera can recognize only a limited ASA/ISO range: 25 to 800. Ilford Delta 3200 ain’t welcome here.

Should You Buy One?

This is a tough question. Tougher than usual. Working with and playing with and living with and falling in love with a film camera is such a personal, specific, subjective experience: your one and only and forever might simply be my one night stand. And vice versa.

In the cold light of day, the Canonet probably looks unattractive because it has a hotter and less attainable friend: the Leica. Photographers often initially consider Canonets because they are interested in rangefinders but can’t afford to invest right away in a Leica or any other pricey interchangeable lens system (I’m looking at you, Contax). The Canonet is an appealing consolation prize here because it comes with a great lens and can be acquired for less than $200. But who really, really wants the camera? For many of us, it’s just the best rangefinder option available right now.

And that, of course, isn’t terribly fair. The Canonet is a truly lovely camera to look at and to hold, and if you like shooting street photography in shutter priority, you’ll get a lot from the G-III QL17.

But I’d still wager that for most photographers, the Canonet is not the right fit as a main or even backup camera. It feels more like a fourth, fifth, or sixth camera, something best left to 35mm aficionados and rangefinder fanatics, Canon collectors and completists—photographers who want a connection with an undeniably interesting part of camera history.

If that sounds like you, just pay the 150ish bucks and get one.

As for me, my eye is definitely wandering.

The post Canon Canonet G-III QL17 Camera Review appeared first on scott locklear.

1. I’m not a Nikon shooter—nothing personal of course; I just can’t get used to the wrong different direction the lenses rotate—so I haven’t touched any of the venerable F-series cameras.
2. I have yet to get my trembling, lust-filled hands on Canon’s own EOS-1V, the last and purportedly greatest of its 35mm film cameras. It’s def in my future though.

That said, if you are interested in shooting 35mm and if you are coming from Canon digital SLRs and genuinely like shooting with them, any of the three 1-series film SLRs will absolutely, categorically be your thing. Get the one you can afford. For most of us, that will be the EOS-1N, which sits perfectly in the sweet spot between being feature rich and not making you cash poor.

Spec Summary

Format: 35mm.

Dates: Announced in October 1994 and produced until March 2000. So any 1N that you buy today will be older than Jimmy Eat World’s Bleed American. And that, tragically, is probably too old to be dancing in underwear.

Cost and Availability 2019: I paid $175 three years ago for my lightly abused 1N, and that is a whole lot of cash compared to where the camera was priced just five years ago. More and more people are shooting 35mm and grabbing them up. I see them on eBay, Amazon, B&H, Adorama, and KEH from $90 to $250ish these days. I’m sure you can still get a better deal at a local mom and pop or a pawn shop, but unless you know what you are looking for, be cautious of the camera’s actual condition.

Price update 2023: Yikes! An EOS-1N in good shape is regularly going for close to $400 now. That’s a sign that even more people are shooting film again, which is great, but used prices are never going to stabilize until a new 35mm camera hits the market. Perhaps Pentax really will help save our wallets.

Price update 2024: Prices have cooled off a little bit this year thankfully. A body in good shape will set you back around $300 to $350.

Price update 2025: Good condition models are back in the $400 range.

Autofocus: Yep. The camera has five autofocusing points, all in a horizontal row. The center point, as usual, is the most sensitive, and it is pretty damn fine for single shot even by today’s standards.

Lens Mount: EF. Every EF lens made from 1987 until today will work on the 1N. There are millions of EF lenses on the planet, and that is one of the best reasons to shoot this camera for your film work.

Battery: A single 2CR5 will get you shooting. The battery is still fairly common and can be found at Amazon, Walmart, and so on. They run about 8ish bucks now, but they’ll last around 50 rolls of film or just about forever in storage. I had one stored away in a different camera for nearly a year, and it fired right up. There is also a version of the 1N (the EOS-1N DP) that comes with a grip for using AA batteries as well, which seems cool, but I’ve never shot with one.

Weight and construction: 855 grams or 1.8 pounds or a little more than Canon’s 70-200mm f/4L IS II lens. The camera is beautifully solid and sturdy. If you’ve shot with a 5D or 7D and like it, you’ll feel right at home. The 1N has weather sealing, but I’ve had it out only in light rain. It was Canon’s top-shelf pro camera for years though, so it can likely take a proper drowning and beating.

Light meter: Oh yes. If you shoot a modern digital camera, you’ll be mostly familiar with the exposure options: 16-zone evaluative, center partial, center weighted, spot, fine spot, and A-TTL flash (the older kind of TTL).

Max shutter speed: 1/8000. As good as it gets with film and digital SLRs. Depending on your film’s speed, you’ll probably be able to shoot wide open during a sunny day.

Flash sync speed: 1/250. Also pretty much as good as it gets with standard film and digital SLRs.

Film advance and rewind: Both are automatic and quick and pain free. For me, having auto advance and rewind is one of the best reasons to shoot with a ‘90s-era or later SLR. Check out the sound of the shutter and film advance in our vid below.

User manual: To a fault, photographers totally hate reading manuals, but unless you have a lot of experience shooting film cameras, download the EOS-1N’s PDF version from the awesome Butkus camera manual site. There is often too much weird stuff with film cameras to figure out, and there is no reason to make learning about the 1N a woefully miserable experience.

Background

The 1N is the enhanced, improved version of Canon’s first pro camera with an EF mount, the EOS-1. Introduced in 1989, the EOS-1 was designed with a single purpose: to finally and definitively woo pros away from Nikon. Although Canon had actually unveiled its impressive EF autofocus system two years earlier, many pro photographers didn’t initially make the switch to Canon because the system had only enthusiast cameras like the EOS 650 and 620 available. Once Canon brought out the EOS-1’s tough, weather-sealed body with fast frame rates and multiple metering options, Nikon began losing the pro sports market. The EOS-1N capitalized on that success by giving photographers more autofocus points and even more options for metering. Canon’s marketing material for the camera back then hoped to deliver a clear message: pros use Canon. Or, as the magazine ads below insist, “Now it’s Canon.”

Battery Access

Although the EOS-1N is a pro camera made in 1994, it has one annoying SLR-design holdover from the ‘70s and ‘80s: to access the battery compartment, you have to unscrew the grip. I use a coin to get it open.

Thankfully, the 2CR5 battery lasts quite a long while, so you shouldn’t need to do this often unless you are fortunate enough to be shooting a ton of film.

Turning on the Camera

Unlike with most modern digital cameras you have probably used, the power switch is located toward the bottom and doesn’t offer any words as beautifully straightforward as “Off” and “On.” Instead, the switch has three settings:

• The first is designated with the letter “L.” In this position, the camera is turned off. The “L” here might stand for “Lock,” which does make sense because the camera is inoperable when in this setting.
• Next is the letter “A,” which turns the camera on and puts it into a “silent” mode. It will not beep when focus is confirmed.
• The last one looks a bit like a WiFi symbol. When this is selected, the camera is on and will beep for focus confirmation in one-shot mode.

Loading Film

Loading film is extremely quick and headache free with the 1N. Just open up the back cover, insert the canister (with the flat end up), and pull the film lead until it reaches the orange mark on the camera. Line up one of the sprockets with a hole in the film, and then close the back cover. When you turn the camera on, the film will advance automatically. That’s it. No need to even set the ISO if your film is DX coded (and most are today). If all is good, you’ll see on the camera’s top LCD a series of transport bars that indicate a roll of film is loaded. The number “1” means your first frame is ready to shoot.

Button Awesomeness

Instead of having on the top of the camera a large mode dial, which is the hallmark of current consumer and prosumer cameras, the EOS-1N features a small group of mighty buttons. It’s the same basic arrangement that all the 1-series DSLRs still use, and I much prefer it: no wasted space, and the buttons are easier and quicker to operate than a dial.

From top to bottom, we have the following:

• The mode button. Press and hold it, and you can use the shutter dial to cycle through all the shooting modes.
• The AF button. This one allows you to toggle between one-shot and servo.
• The metering and exposure compensation button. Press and hold it, and you can cycle through three metering options with the shutter dial or adjust exposure comp with the quick control dial.

Those are straightforward enough, but there is also a pair of two-button combinations. Curiously, they provide quick access to settings that I don’t think are terribly crucial (they’d be better off stuck behind the flippy door with the other infrequently used stuff):

• Press and hold the AF and metering buttons, and you can manually set your film’s ISO. Pretty much all film rolls have had a DX code since 1983, so it would be rare for a shooter to need to set ISO manually.
• Press and hold the mode and metering buttons, and you can set a frame for multiple exposures (up to 9 exposures on a single frame). Pretty cool, but again not something I imagine most photographers need to access frequently and quickly.

Manual Exposure Nirvana

My problem with most SLRs produced throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s is that they were designed primarily to be shot in an autoexposure mode. I have nothing against autoexposure of course as long as a camera can easily be used in manual too, but the metering in many models was just outright hostile unless put into an auto mode. Even when Canon completely redesigned its lens mount in the late ‘80s, the camera it chose to introduce—the EOS 650—implemented a needlessly painful and awkward form of manual exposure.

Canon did not make that same mistake with the pro-level 1 series. The shutter dial remained in the usual spot on the grip, but on the back of the 1 and 1N, Canon placed a large and beautiful “quick control dial” that adjusted aperture. For the first time, Canon photographers could control with one hand shutter and aperture speeds. Manual shooting had never before been so fast and so easy. The quick control dial is used on all upper-level Canon DSLRs to this day.

Diving Into DEP

Along with manual exposure, the 1N includes all the usual modes—aperture and shutter priority, program, and bulb—but there is one funky (and potentially cool) addition: depth of field mode, or DEP as it is labeled on the 1N’s LCD.

DEP was first featured on the EOS 650 in 1987, disappeared two months later on the EOS 620, and was resurrected in 1989 on the EOS-1. A modified version of it lives on as A-DEP mode on some consumer Canon DSLRs.

Depth of field mode allows the photographer to set two focusing points—one in the foreground and one in the background. The camera will then set an aperture and shutter value to ensure that everything within those two points is in focus. There are definitely some interesting possibilities here for the photographer:

• Shooting a large group at a wedding reception? Set one focusing point on the closest person, and set the other on someone in the back. In theory, the entire group will be in focus when you shoot the frame.
• Using a macro lens to shoot an insect and want it all in focus? One focusing point can be set on the head and another on the tail.
• Taking analogue selfies with the camera’s timer? Set two focusing points and just stand between them.  

Essentially, DEP mode removes any guesswork for getting an appropriate depth of field, which is helpful when shooting film because you can’t immediately review your shot like you can on digital.

To set the first focus point, aim your camera and press the shutter button halfway down. To set the second point, aim your camera in a different spot and press the shutter halfway down again. To take a photo, aim your camera somewhere in the middle of the two points. Pressing the shutter halfway one more time will show you the aperture and shutter settings the camera has chosen; press all the way down to finally fire the shutter and make the exposure.

DEP is pretty cool actually, even though a bit slow when put into practice, and I can’t help but think that something more practical and awesome could have come of it, especially on one of Canon’s modern video or cinema cameras.

Custom Function Confusion?

For a pro piece of gear, the EOS-1N is a fairly straightforward camera: pop on a lens, pop in some film, select a metering and shooting mode, and happily fire away. But when the camera was introduced in ‘94, some photographers felt that the 1N’s Achilles heel was its “confusing” custom functions menu. Digital photographers nowadays are well used to clicking and swiping through screens and screens of woefully intricate menus, so the EOS-1N’s problem area seems pretty quaint now. And in truth, many photographers won’t even need to bother with custom functions.

If, however, you do want to explore the extent of possible customization, B&H has a nicely formatted table of the EOS-1N’s 14 available functions. I’ll review here a couple of the more useful/interesting/arcane options, beginning with the mysterious flippy door on the side of the camera.

To get started with custom functions, open the flippy door, and press the CF button once. Then use the shutter dial to cycle through the 14 functions. Each function itself has from two to four options (labeled on the LCD from 0 to 3 if there are four of them); you toggle those options by pressing the CF button again. And again. And again. In fact, you’ll end up pressing the CF button a lot, which is a bummer because it’s a small button and quite mushy. Thankfully, once you get this stuff set up to your liking, you likely shan’t have to mess around with functions again.

Fixing BC Errors

All older film-shooting cameras will eventually succumb to some sort of malfunction (yes, Leica, even you too). The EOS-1N, although an extremely well-built tank of a camera, seems to be particularly vulnerable to BC errors. When it happens, you’ll see “BC” appear on the top screen like in the pic below.

Unfortunately, “BC” is a catchall category for just about anything that might have gone wrong with the camera’s internals. Most often, however, it means the mirror has locked up. You’ll know it has happened because you won’t be able to fire off a frame. It’s caused apparently by stuck magnets near the lens opening.

I had my EOS-1N for a good 6 years before it happened to mine. If it happens to you too, you’ll most likely need to get your smallest screwdriver ready and take off the face plate. It sounds terrifying if you are not a DIY person (I am totally not one, so I feel your terror), but there are some great vids that will talk you through the process. I recommend this one by Cannon Fast Reviews.

It’s actually pretty painless. Here is my camera all naked and ready for surgery. Happy to report that it was a success.

Should You Buy an EOS-1N?

I’ve made a lot of profoundly dumb and recklessly uninformed photography purchases during my time so far on Earth, but the EOS-1N isn’t one of them. Not even close. I love this damn camera, and it makes me want to work hard at being a better photographer so that one day it might love me back. If you are at all interested in shooting film and desire an easy-to-use, tough-as-a-tank, quick-to-focus 35mm camera, just fork over the 150ish bucks for Canon’s EOS-1N. You’ll start your own lovefest.

The post Canon EOS-1N Camera Review appeared first on scott locklear.

Spec Summary

Format: 35mm.

Dates: Manufactured from March 1987 to February 1989. So any 650 you buy today will be older than Nirvana’s Nevermind. And smell like anything but teen spirit.

Current cost and availability: I got mine seven years ago for 69 bucks from a proper camera shop that (in theory) checked it out and graded it in nearly new shape. On eBay, you can readily find them anywhere from $10 to $90 (but buyer beware on the camera’s actual condition). B&H, Adorama, and KEH sometimes have them in their used stock too.

Price update 2023: Prices for the 650 have thankfully remained pretty stable! You can find one, like I did, for $70 all day long.

Price update 2024: Holding steady at a reasonable $60 to $80.

Price update 2025: Despite the absolutely galling price inflation for 35mm cameras during the past few years, the 650 is a bargain at around 70 bucks for a copy in good shape. It’s by no means the most satisfying-to-use film camera still available, but it’ll get the job done at a price that remains reasonable.

Autofocus: Yes. And this is the camera that really started it all off for Canon. It features a single, centered autofocus point that for the time was considered quite mighty.

Lens mount: EF. Lenses are thus super easy to find in every price range used and new. There are literally millions of EF lenses out in the wild.

Battery: The camera takes a single 2CR5. You can get them from Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, and so on, but they don’t seem to be quite as available or cheap as they used to be. They are rated to last about 40 rolls, which feels right though I haven’t actually counted. They also can be stored in the camera for a long while without dying. I had my 650 packed away for about a year, and the battery fired up just fine.

Weight and construction: 660 grams or 1.45 pounds or a little over two of Canon’s 50mm f/1.4 lenses. It’s made of the usual engineering plastic (like a contemporary Rebel), so the weight is very manageable. But you don’t want to have fumbly fingers over concrete.

Light meter: Yep, it has one, and if you’ve used a current Canon digital camera, you will feel right at home with the metering as long as you are shooting shutter or aperture priority. Shutter speed and aperture can be adjusted only in half stops though. I dig that, but if you rely on third stops from your digital camera, it might be annoying.

Max shutter speed: 1/2000. Fast enough for most daylight uses. Depending on your lens’s maximum aperture and the film speed you are using, you might not be able to shoot wide open on sunny, bright days.

Flash sync speed: 1/125. Not that far from many modern digital cameras and fine for studio/indoor work.

Film advance and rewind: It’s all automatic and painless and pretty quick.

User manual: I know, I know. Photographers don’t ever read instructions, but you’ll likely need a manual for these older cameras, especially if you don’t have much experience with film gear. There is just too much weird stuff to figure out. Luckily, Canon hosts a comprehensive Camera Museum where you can download a pristine PDF of the EOS 650 guide.

History of the EOS 650

Up until 1987, Canon was second place in the SLR pro market to Nikon. Autofocus at that time was in its infancy, so pros wouldn’t go anywhere near it. Canon realized that its then-current FD mount, which it had invested a lot of time and money in, wouldn’t be up to the challenge of providing the best autofocus experience, so the conservative company did the most forward-looking thing in its history: it ditched the FD mount and came out with what we all know as the EOS EF. The mount is special because the focusing motors are in each lens itself, not the camera’s body. It’s super quick even now, but back then it was a revelation. Canon pros at the time were furious because they had also invested so much time and money into the FD mount, but they and a whole bunch of Nikon users were eventually won over. Canon to this day dominates in the pro sports market.

In March 1987, the mild-mannered EOS 650 was introduced as the first Canon camera with this new mount. It’s at best an enthusiast camera that would be surpassed by the EOS 620 a couple of months later, but all of us Canon shooters owe a hat tip to this first comer that was “designed for the future.” Check out the subtle ‘80s marketing material.

Me and My EOS 650

But I didn’t know about any of that history stuff when I purchased my 650 seven years ago. I was simply looking for a more modern 35mm film camera than the one I had, a manual-focusing Minolta XG1. At the time, I was also really interested in having printed images that were produced on 35mm film; the actual process of making them—the tactile experience of manually advancing and rewinding film, of selecting shutter speed on a dial or aperture on the lens—was something I already had with the Minolta. Instead, I wanted something faster, something more akin to the experience of shooting on digital but with the end result of an image printed from film. Because I was already shooting with a 7D and had a handful of EF lenses that I really liked, the 650 seemed like a good fit for the gear in my bag and the money in my wallet.

And in truth the camera was. On music gigs, I’d throw it in the bag with a cheap 50mm f/1.8II attached and loaded with Ilford 3200. After digitally getting all the shots I needed for the job, I could grab the 650 and just have fun. If the pics sucked (and they frequently did…my fault, not the camera’s), it was no biggie because I knew it was playtime.

If that sounds like the camera is merely a toy….you are not totally wrong. For me, the 650 is at best an incredibly capable and quite fun toy camera because of its quirky and ultimately useless manual exposure mode. If you can’t put and use a camera in manual, it just ain’t…a serious camera. For my needs anyway. You can judge for yourself after we dive into the 650’s quirks.

Battery Access

Unlike a lot of film cameras, the EOS 650 thankfully uses a still-pretty-easy-to-purchase battery, the 2CR5. Unfortunately, though, the camera’s battery compartment isn’t as easy to access as the one in a modern digital camera. You first have to unscrew and remove the 650’s grip. I use a quarter to loosen the screw, and it looks kind of stupid and is kind of cumbersome, so I wouldn’t want to do it during anything critical or when clients are around. Happily, a 2CR5 battery lasts quite a long time, especially if you are running only a few rolls of film a month through the camera, so you could easily go a year before needing to replace the battery.

Turning the Camera On

The main switch has four positions, three of which might not be clear if you are coming from a modern digital camera.

• The L position means the camera is off. Some users have said the letter “L” here stands for “Lock.” Makes sense I suppose. When it is in this position, you can’t take a photo.
• The A position means the camera is on and can be used to take a photo. It will not beep for focus confirmation though.
• The third position looks a bit like a Wifi symbol. When you select this, the camera is on, and it will make a short beep when focus is confirmed and a long beep if the shutter is too slow to eliminate camera shake.
• Finally, there is the green square position, which is still commonly used today for full Auto. If you select this, the camera will make all the decisions for you, including shutter, aperture, and one-shot mode.

Loading Film and Checking the Shutter

Loading film is a quick process with the 650. Pop open the back cover, stick in the canister (with the tapered end down), and stretch the film until the lead reaches the orange mark. Make sure one of the sprocket holes has a sprocket tooth in it, and close the cover. The film will automatically advance for your first shot, and the ISO will be automatically set if your film has a DX code (most today do). The back cover also has a handy little window that shows what type of film you have loaded.

While you have the back cover open, check your shutter blades. According to forum chat, aged 650s appear to be pretty plagued with sticky shutters because the shutter bumper can melt and deposit goo on the blades. They can apparently be cleaned by using Q-tips with alcohol or lighter fluid, but I can’t vouch for that because I’ve luckily never had to do it. My shutter blades are looking a little worn though.

Rewinding Film

The camera automatically rewinds the film after you take your last shot. What your “last shot” is depends on what the film’s DX code indicates—that is to say, even if the canister technically has more film available, the camera will begin rewinding after the 24th or 36th (or whatever-th) exposure is made. No squeezing out extra shots with the 650.

The autorewind is pretty quick. It takes about 12 seconds to complete a 36-exposure canister. Once the film begins rewinding, the display panel shows moving bars and counts down the remaining number of frames. It’s oddly satisfying.

Hidden Stuff Behind the Flippy Door

Below the film cover on the back of the camera is a small door that flips open to reveal four more buttons. From left to right, we have the following:

• A film rewind button. Press this if you want to rewind your film before you finish the roll. It will automatically begin rewinding. I’ve never actually pressed it (because who wants to waste film?), but I assume it rewinds as quickly as the usual way.
• Next, is a yellow autofocus selector button. It allows you to toggle between one-shot and continuous focusing modes. Press the button and then rotate the shutter button to select each mode.
• Then there is a blue button that allows you to set the camera’s film advance settings: single shot, continuous shooting, or a self-timer. The max frame rate for continuous shooting is 3 frames a second. The self-timer is for 10 seconds.
• Press both the yellow and blue buttons to manually set your film’s ISO. You’ll need to use this for sure if your film does not have a DX code.
• Finally, there is a battery check button. If you press it and “bc” blinks on the top LCD, the camera is malfunctioning. Before, however, you take it in to a repair shop (or simply throw it in the trash and buy another one), take out your battery and clean the battery contacts with a Q-Tip. Dirty battery contacts often trigger a camera’s malfunction warning. Always, always check battery contacts if something is amiss! Doing so is a super easy and quick fix.

Quirky Manual Exposure

There is no other way to say it: shooting manual exposure on Canon’s 650 is weird and sucky and ultimately useless. Changing aperture is cumbersome, and manual metering is flat-out bizarre.

Once you put the camera in manual mode, you change shutter speed in the usual way by rotating the dial on the camera’s grip. There is, however, no designated, exclusive aperture dial. To change aperture, you have to press and hold a small button on the side of the lens mount (where the depth-of-field preview button is on modern cameras) and then rotate the shutter dial. You can only change one or the other at a time. Here is what the aperture button (designated with the letter “M”) looks like.

So changing aperture on the 650 means that you have to constantly change your hand position and grip the camera awkwardly, which isn’t at all speedy or ergonomic. The camera essentially forces you to become a slow and stupid wobblemeister who shoots mostly missed moments that are blurry.

But that isn’t the end of the manual misery. Metering for manual exposure uses a needlessly cryptic set of letters to indicate under- and overexposure.

• “OP” means the shot is underexposed. You have to, as the manual says, “OPen the aperture.”
• “oo” indicates a correct exposure.
• “CL” means the shot is overexposed. You have to, again as the manual says, “CLose the aperture.”

Painfully lame, yes? To make it even worse, there isn’t any indication of how under or over you might be. To make it even doubly worse, you need to press and hold the aperture button for the camera to show a meter reading. Because metering isn’t constant, you can’t adjust shutter or aperture on the fly and see the results of your adjustments.

Canon, in short, (mis?)designed this camera to be shot exclusively in an automatic mode, and the only way you can possibly get on with the 650 is to embrace its intrinsic auto-natured-ness. Mine lives and will eventually die in aperture priority. Once I accepted that, shooting the 650 became a fun experience.

Mode Button Kudos

Most current digital SLRs have a big dial on the top of the camera for switching among the AV/TV/Program/Manual modes. The 650 instead uses a simple and space-saving button inherited from Canon’s final flagship FD-mount camera, the T90. It’s the same simple setup that the later pro-level 1 series cameras, both film and digital to this day, would inherit as well. I totally dig it. I’ve never understood wasting all that physical space for something that isn’t really changed that often. And even if a shooter does like to toggle between modes quite a bit, using a button and the shutter dial is just as quick.

Should You Buy a Canon EOS 650?

Knowing what I do now, I wouldn’t buy one again, but it might be the right camera for you if you fall into one (or both) of these two specific cases:

1. You don’t have a ton of cash and you already shoot with a Canon digital camera and a collection of EF lenses. You really want to give 35mm film a go, and you want the experience of using a film camera to be pretty painless, so it needs to have autofocus, modern(ish) metering, and automatic film advance and rewind. Most important, you live in aperture or shutter priority, and truly love living there. A 650 is absolutely not the right camera if you shoot in manual and/or want the “authentic” film shooter experience of manually focusing and manually advancing/rewinding film.
2. You are a camera collector or a Canon completist. The 650 is historically important and interesting enough to own, and it’s cheap enough to inoffensively do nothing but shelf duty in a dusty collection.

That said, an autofocusing, fast-loading 35mm camera is still definitely a viable option in your gig bag if you want to shoot and produce film. Instead of the 650, the better Canon alternatives are the pro-level EOS-1 or EOS-1N (or ideally the 1V if you can swing the big cash premium). My lightly scratched 1N cost $175 three years ago; the extra hundred bucks over the 650’s price was totally worth it to me, and I suspect it shall be to you too once you shoot with one.

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