Canon Ae-1 Metering

[carl_chamberland]

Hello everyboby. I am new to this forum.My name is Carl Chamberland. I

live in the Montreal area suburb. I have been shooting digitaly

exclusively for about 2 years. 2 weeks ago,my wife found in one of

her storage box an old canon ae-1 with a 50mm 1.8 lens and a 177a

flash. The camera is in pristine condition and I have bought some film

to try it out.

I have cleaned it out and have downloaded an instruction manual. It

says that when the camera meters the scene it show on the right side

needle whether under/over exposed so that you can see what you are

doing. In auto setting, the under exposure is always flashing no

matter what shutter speed is selected(I was aiming the camera at a

bright dining table light) so I know that under exposure is

impossible. The needle never goes to overexpose. The battery is a

brand new lithium battery. Is it supposed to do that or what. Or am I

really stupid!!

 

 

If you have time, I would appreciate any help!

 

 

 

 

I have developed a roll of film and some of them in the auto mode with

the flash are really good, the ones in completely manual mode, well

some are under exposed, that's to be expected as I was trying it out,

but otherwise everything seems ok!

[trw]

First, is it an AE-1 or an AE-1 Program?

 

Is the film speed set correctly? If it's set to 12iso you could have that problem. Is the stop-down preview lever stuck? Is the shutter speed set to something useful for your lighting conditions? 60s @ 100iso may not work inside.

[douglas_vitello]

Do you have the aperture select ring on the lens set to automatic?