Canon A-1

[dave_brooks1]

<p>Hello FD forum. This is my first post here. A few days ago I bought an A-1,T80 and 3 lenses at a local Goodwill. The lenses are : 50mm Canon 1.8 , Kiron 28mm 2.0, & Kiron 70~210 4.0. Also included was a Sunpak 422D , bag , and way cool late 70`s wide strap. For 50 bucks it seemed a good deal, Everything works. The A-1 is used, but not abused , the T80 is like new. The lenses are in good shape and I would rate the 28 as mint-. This is the most interesting lens to me. As a Nikon user , I have little practical experience with Canon gear , and these are the first Kiron lenses I have owned ,though I believe my Vivitar Series 1 70~210 is a Kiron. I have had no time to search the interwebs for info ,so any advice or tips would be most helpful. The A-1 looks to an interesting camera , I sm looking forward to shootinga roll of Velvia,especially using the 28. Sorry to be so long winded,thanks to all who reply. </p>

[SCL]

<p>Get a user manual if you didn't get one with the camera. www.butkus.org free but he appreciates a $2 donation to keep making these out of date items available.</p>

[mark_pierlot]

<p>It sounds like you got a decent deal, Dave. The A-1 is a very fine body, but is prone to the infamous A-series shutter squeal. I hope yours is free of it. Also, you should check the light seals and mirror foam. You don't want light leaks to ruin your roll of Velvia.</p>

<p>Kiron made some excellent lenses. The only one I have is the 105/2.8 macro, but I've heard good things about the 28mm.</p>

<p>Welcome to photo.net, and good luck!</p>

[Keith S in Arizona USA]

<p>Hello Dave; Welcome to the FD Forum!</p>

<p>Unless it has been serviced in the near past, you will find that the A-1 rear door dust seals and MIRROR CUSHION are likely bad, rotted, dried out. The mirror cushion in particular can be crumbling (poke at it with a Q-tip to see.) If the cushion is crumbling, you will end up getting sticky glue and particulate matter transferred to the mirror due to mirror flip-up actuation when you take photos, and THAT is a nightmare to have cleaned off (by an expert, do NOT mess with this yourself, REGARDLESS of what someone here may post!) If the cushion is bad, DO NOT make photos or actuate the shutter until the old cushion has been replaced. Believe me, I learned of the sticky mirror contamination the hard way. It is NOT fun and needs to be avoided!</p>

<p>The door seals and cushion can be replaced by you, if you so desire. Jon Goodman sells kits and instructions. (If I can do it, so can you.) His email is JGood21967@aol.com and the A-1 seal/cushion kits are $9 with superb instructions. His physical address is 9153 Loma Bista, Dallas, TX, 75243.</p>

<p>eBay might have original A-1 manuals on occasion if you'd like to go that route.</p>

<p>As to the shutter squeal, if you get it, a camera repair depot can take care of that without too much of a cost. It can be done yourself but it is very tricky. Also, DO NOT EVER try to fix that by squirting oil into the camera as some posters may recommend. The oil WILL migrate everywhere and can cause bad problems.</p>

<p>A good checkout and possible CLA may be in order IF you desire to maintain and use the A-1 for a long time. I have three of them, and they are great cameras. They were CLA'd ten years ago and are still going strong with much use.</p>

[Lou_Meluso]

<p>That fast, Kiron wide angle lens is optically a good 28mm but beware of oil on the blades, a common problem with these. They get gummy but keeps on working, and just when you need it most, it jams on you. If no oil is seen on the aperture blades you may be OK...for now. The A-1 is a fine camera. Sounds like, overall, you got a good deal. The Kiron wide angle often goes for that much alone!</p>

[Keith S in Arizona USA]

<p>DANG !!!</p>

<p>Correction to my post. Jon's address is on <strong>"Loma Vista"</strong> (not Loma Bista)</p>

<p>Sorry for the error !!!</p>

[mwmcbroom]

<p>Well, you've gotten a fair amount of cautionary advice, which is all good. The only thing I would add -- since you're a Nikon user -- is that the A-1's metering pattern is completely different from the 60-40 pattern Nikon has used in most of its film cameras. With a Nikon, 60% of the metering occurs within a largish circle visible from within the viewfinder and 40% of the metering occurs outside of it. This is a very useful pattern and handles most lighting situations well.</p>

<p>The A-1 is different. It has a centerweighted pattern, some say bottom-centerweighted, where there's a bit more emphasis toward the bottom of the frame, the idea being that much of the time snapshots will be taken with people standing with the sky behind them and a bottom centerweighted pattern will de-emphasize the brightness of the sky somewhat. This is all well and good but it doesn't go far enough. The Canon A-series meter will still respond to any light source occurring anywhere in the frame, so you need to be aware of this, especially when shooting slide film. If you aren't, you'll wind up with underexposed slides from situations where a bright light source may have entered part of the frame. DAMHIK. I found out the hard way.</p>

<p>Once you're aware of how the A-1's meter operates, it becomes a very versatile camera. And a surprisingly robust one, too. I have owned quite a few A-1s over the years, and out of maybe a couple of dozen or so, I've only had one that was a doorstop. All the others worked perfectly. Considering how much of an electronic wonder it was when introduced in 1978, I think that's saying a lot. Currently I own only two -- one sitting permanently atop a Motor Drive MA, which to me is a must-have accessory for that camera. Not only will it blaze away at some 5 fps, but it makes an already comfortable camera even more so, plus it adds a vertical shutter release, which is very handy. </p>

[thomas_goehler]

<p>@Michael: Doesn't Nikon rather have an 80/20 metering? That is what I always thought and that makes it really difefrent from any Canon A-series cam.</p>

[mwmcbroom]

<p>Hi Thomas, up to the F3, Nikon's metering pattern was 60/40. With the introduction of the F3, it was tightened up to 80/20. I believe Nikon did this because it also included Aperture-priority auto-exposure on that camera and the Nikon folks figured that the pros would require a tighter metering pattern for slides and such before they would trust auto-exposure. If this was their thinking, it was spot on, IMO. When I got my first F3, I was leery about shooting slides with it on the "A" setting, but gave it a try anyway. They all came back perfectly exposed. Which really sold me on it, and from that point on, most of my slide photography with the F3 was done in Aperture Priority mode. Personally, I prefer the 80/20 pattern, but I've shot enough slides with the older 60/40 pattern to know that it works well too.</p>

<p>Form what I understand, Nikon continued the 60/40 pattern with the FE2 and FM2, but I'm sure that once multi-segmented metering became more common, as was found on the FA, the simple old 60/40 pattern was phased out in preference to more sophisticated designs.</p>

<p> </p>

[bob_h]

<p>If you ever shot any of the Nikon Series E lenses which were very good, they were made by Kiron for Nikon.</p>

[IanRivlin]

<p>Not that this has got much to do with the original question but I have a Vivitar Series 1 (70-210mm which I used on a Canon F1 and now use exclusively on my trusty Canon A1). As most people are aware, these were made by three different manufacturers. Mine is the first one - made by Kiron. They are all superb - <em>absolutely</em> superb. I'm told the third one was the best - albeit by just a tiny margin. Comparing the Series 1 with the Nikkor equivalents shows no difference - possibly the Vivitar is even better? My point is that the Canon A1 and a Vivitar Series 1, 70-210mm is a film camera and zoom lens combination that just about can't be beaten by anything - at any price.</p>