Canon Quartz Date Back E for the EOS 650, 620, and 630 cameras

Canon Quartz Date Back E for the EOS 650, 620, and 630 film cameras
An informational post

Quite a number of the Canon EOS 650, 620 and 630 camera bodies out in the market place have the Canon Quartz Date Back E on the body. Here I discuss this and present the manual for it in pdf format.
The three alternate backs for these cameras were the plain back, Date BackE and the much rarer Technical Back E.
http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/hardwares/classics/eos/eoscamera/620/index3.htm has brief discussions of both E backs, with pictures of the Technical Back and its associated keyboard (yes).

Having accumulated a couple of the simpler Canon Quartz Date Back E backs, I thought I had figured out most of the settings, but just in case, I finally found a listing for the extremely rare instruction manual for the Canon Quartz Date Back E. I have made a pdf of it, and sent a copy to Mike Butkus, even though he didn't feel that there would be much demand for it. I suppose he'll get it up on his site one day.

The function of the Canon Quartz Date Back E is to imprint a date or other data onto the film (higher than ISO 100, that is). The options are

• auto date (order of day-month-year selectable) [good up to the year 2029, by the way]
• a day and time stamp [a quartz clock is built in]
• a record number (up to six digits - each from 00 to 99 and 'blank']
• a frame counter number - Fc 00 00 to Fc 99 99
• and there is also a film loading date given in <year/month/day> displayed when the 'film loading date check button is pressed

It uses a CR2025 battery of 3 year life, or more.

 

Here is the manual itself in a version printed after the release of the Canon EOS 630.

 

The Quartz Date Back is available at various stores and on occasion on eBay. The only priced example I could find was just over $30, but it's usually cheaper to get one on one of the cameras, which generally go for less than that. I could find no examples of the Technical Back E for sale.
That's all folks.

 

Forgot to post the example of the result

 

LATER NOTE:

At the time of this original post, it was possible to post a pdf file as well as image files.

That is no longer possible, so the pdf has disappeared.

 

PDF user manual is available here: https://www.cameramanuals.org/canon_pdf/canon_quartz_date_back_e.pdf

 

Thanks, mike