willieleake

Thank you Ben and Keith for your responses! The ASA dial does seem a bit difficult to lift, but rotating the dial seems ok, not too loose and not too tight. One of the first things I noticed when trying to figure out the camera was the film advance lever was loose, so I tightened the top cover that holds it down( just finger tight, didn't have a proper tool). I'm wondering if that means someone has taken it off previously or maybe its been damaged somehow.

A friend told me the other day "buy a light meter then" haha. The shutter speeds seem to be in good working order to me.

Ive had the camera for a bit over 5 years, got it from a friend who got it from a friend, etc. It's in very good condition overall but, if I had to make a guess, I'd say its never been serviced.

New battery in the camera and cleaned the contacts, same issue…

Ok, Ill pick one up on my way home from work and post an update. Thanks

Hello everyone, and thanks in advance for reading this post. Ive had my Canon AE-1 for a few years now but just recently wanted to start shooting with it. I found a great PDF operation manual online and started checking things over on the camera. Everything seems to be in great working condition except I can't seem to get my light meter to work properly. My go to film is Fujifilm 400, so I've set the film speed dial to 400 ASA, I've got the 50mm1.8 set on "A", and my shutter speed set at 1/125s. When I look through the viewfinder and press the shutter down halfway the light meter needle drops all the way to the bottom. When I press the battery check button the needle sits right on the "4" mark so I'm under the impression the battery is good. Any ideas on why the needle is dropping to the bottom? Is my light meter broken? I have tried a lot of different settings variations e.g. setting ASA to 3200 and shutter speed to B. Manual exposure override, tried other lenses, taking the lens off the camera, every time the needle will still go directly to the bottom, Im out of ideas and hoping to avoid the repair shop haha... Thank you, any help is greatly appreciated!