Canon 35mm, manual or automatic?

My grand daughter has been accepted into Antonelli Institute, which is a photography school outside Philadelphia, PA, for this fall. We are novices in photography and need to buy a manual 35mm camera for her school work. I have heard of the Canon quality and would like to purchase a good used 35mm outfit, however, it must be manual. Can you tell me which cameras are manual and which are automatic? We would like to spent under $500 for the entire outfit, including lenses.

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Thank you.

Frank

If you're looking for an FD, and want a pure manual camera, your

choices are TX, TLb, FT, FTb, F1 (certain models), AT-1 and I think

that's about that. Others can be overidden. They are all old. I love

the FD line, but there are a few new manual cameras out there with

manual metering. Pentax just stopped making the K1000 which was made

for years. There should still be new ones on the shelf at many

places. If I HAD to buy a Manual Camera I take a serious look at the

K1000. The older Canons might present a problem getting service

since some parts are no longer available.

Frank, as Dave wrote, there are some good used Canons out there but

it's a buyer-beware situation. Other than the T60, which was

actually made by Cosina, Canon hasn't made a manual focus camera in

about 10 years. A perfectly good, little-used camera can suffer from

gummy oils binding diaphragms, deteriorated light shields and mirror

pads, inaccurate shutter speeds, etc., merely from not having been

exercised regularly or stored properly. To minimize frustration, buy

from a reputable dealer who will allow a reasonable inspection period

(7-30 days) or stand behind what he sells (some will guarantee a

camera to work for a period of time - up to six months in some cases).

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Having said that, I'd heartily recommend a Canon FTb, a brick of a

camera which was produced in enough quantities to be available in

good condition from many sources and serviceable by any experienced

repair shop; or a TX, a very similar camera with slightly fewer

features, but missing nothing significant. If the school permits use

of cameras having autoexposure modes - as long as the student uses

only the manual exposure mode - the Canon AE-1 and AE-1 Program are

even more plentiful. The AT-1 is very similar and is a manual-

exposure-only camera, but is seen less often in the U.S. These "A"

cameras are prone to a few problems, chiefly squeaky mirrors needing

lubrication, and deteriorating mirror bumper pads. Unless the seller

guarantees these flaws to be absent, figure another $85-$135 into the

camera price for professional repairs and adjustments.

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I mentioned the Canon T60 - some folks have claimed this model was

troublesome. I don't know. I do know Cosina has used this same

chassis to make cameras for Olympus, Nikon and others. So, while I'm

a huge fan of older Canon FD gear, you might consider a brand-

spankin' new Olympus OM2000 with 35-70 zoom for under $300; same goes

for the Nikon FM10. Both are built on the Cosina body but take the

Olympus or Nikon lenses. That could be a plus or minus, depending on

your budget. Good used Olympus lenses are getting scarcer. Nikon

lenses have never been cheap, but you can get third-party lenses from

Vivitar, Tokina, Sigma, Tamron and others for less money. (By the

way, Nikon still makes the all-manual-everything FM2N, a bulletproof

camera if ever there was one, but the body and one lens would blow

your budget.)

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One more consideration. Minolta still makes new manual focus cameras

with auto exposure and manual exposure - the X-700 and X-370N.

Minolta also still makes manual focus lenses, and good used Minolta

lenses are readily available pretty inexpensively. In addition to

Canon gear I also have a Minolta XD-5 (now discontinued) with Minolta

lenses and dedicated flash, and it's great stuff.

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Whatever camera your granddaughter starts with, the lenses should

include (besides the "normal" 50-55mm f/1.2-2 lens) a 28mm f/2.8 wide

angle (I don't find 35mm wide enough to be useful, and anything wider

than 28mm tends to get pricey) and a medium telephoto in the

neighborhood of 100mm to the now out-of-fashion 135mm length. While

zooms can easily cover these focal lengths, using prime lenses will

force the photographer to concentrate on framing the subject, moving

around it and viewing it from different angles. Zooms can lead to

laziness (happens to all of us, however long we've been shooting).

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Regarding flash units - it's getting harder to find a truly manual

flash unit. Most of 'em have an auto setting that makes things

really easy. I love 'em. But a student should use 'em on the manual

setting and learn to calculate her own guide number, rather than

believing what the manufacturer claims. But do get her a flash with

thyristor circuitry - nobody likes waiting 20 seconds for old-

fashioned units to charge up.

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Sorry for the lengthy reply. Hope it helps, and best wishes to your

granddaughter.

Woops, correction. I wrote: "Canon hasn't made a manual focus camera

in about 10 years." I should have written: Canon hasn't made a

manual exposure only camera in about 10 years. The "T" series

cameras were made right at 10 years ago, and the T-70 and T-90

included manual exposure modes. The classic F1N was made until

fairly recently, but was a pricey pro's camera.