serious Canon complications.

Alison · Nov 22, 2005

My first camera was an AE-1 Program and I loved it. You said it's your mother's and she's taken really good care of it....I assume then that she's been using it for years as well? Are her pictures out of focus? I come from both a Canon and Nikon household, and even with similar cameras it still takes a while to get used to the camera. Mitica gave some great suggestions, good luck figuring out the issue

j_mcquillen · Nov 22, 2005

Couple of extra possibilities... do you wear glasses/contacts? might have been a problem with the diopter thingy (..yes, thingy is a technical term).

Don't know whether you used a tripod / long exposure but could it have been camera shake rather than focus?

Mitica100 · Nov 23, 2005

Oh, notelliot... can you post a couple of those out of focus pics here?

notelliot · Nov 23, 2005

my mom always has it in Program mode, with the aperture ring on Auto. she said that she's never gotten a good picture with an f stop lower (?) than 4.5.

i think my problem was exposure, mainly. and a severe unfamiliarity with the camera.

they scanned kind of grainy, but not too bad.. (small town, grocerystore..etc)
the first is the only one that turned out - still not a great photo

Christie Photo · Nov 23, 2005

That first one is just shallow depth of field. The other two are camera movement.

-Pete

j_mcquillen · Nov 23, 2005

First shot looks sharp on the object (monitor/TV?) in the foreground (might just be because of the size of the image... possibly more blurred on a larger print). If you were using a wide aperture (f4.5 etc) and the camera picked up on the foreground object as your point of focus, then the background will always look blurred.

Second shot - background is out of focus, but this will be because of a wide aperture, and focusing on the tree in the foreground. The tree itself does look blurred, but this looks more like camera shake than a focusing problem to me...

Third shot - again, I would say this was camera shake rather than focus... especially as seems to have been taken in a darkened / dimly lit room.

Mitica100 · Nov 23, 2005

notelliot, use a tripod and take the same pictures again. You'll be surprised at the result.

notelliot · Nov 23, 2005

alright. thanks for the advice - all of you.

have one more question regarding the camera itself. sometimes the shutter release won't release. it depresses, but acts like it's on "Lock". didn't find anything in the manual.

why would this occur?

Mitica100 · Nov 23, 2005

notelliot said:
alright. thanks for the advice - all of you.

have one more question regarding the camera itself. sometimes the shutter release won't release. it depresses, but acts like it's on "Lock". didn't find anything in the manual.

why would this occur?

Is the camera in the self timer mode, perhaps? There is a lever next to the wind up lever which is positioned at L (lock) or other two settings. Make sure it's on regular exposures and not on self timer.

If that's not the cause, then your camera might need a little lube job. I have a few people, camera techs that do that, let me know if you need a link or two.

DocFrankenstein · Nov 23, 2005

have one more question regarding the camera itself. sometimes the shutter release won't release. it depresses, but acts like it's on "Lock". didn't find anything in the manual.

why would this occur?

My best guess would be a dying battery.

j_mcquillen · Nov 23, 2005

Some cameras have a focus lock that prevents the shutter being released if it thinks its not properly focused. Don't know if this is the case with the AE1, but if it was, there's probably a warning somewhere... a flashing light in the viewfinder for example, or an orange light instead of a green one.

Christie Photo · Nov 23, 2005

notelliot said:
...sometimes the shutter release won't release. it depresses, but acts like it's on "Lock". didn't find anything in the manual.

why would this occur?

This is reaching a bit, but since you say "sometimes," it could just be that the camera is making an exposure in very low light... remaining open for many seconds. Just a thought.

Good luck!
-Pete

DocFrankenstein · Nov 23, 2005

j_mcquillen said:
Some cameras have a focus lock that prevents the shutter being released if it thinks its not properly focused. Don't know if this is the case with the AE1, but if it was, there's probably a warning somewhere... a flashing light in the viewfinder for example, or an orange light instead of a green one.

That's not the case here, since AE-1 is a MANUAL FOCUS camera which doesn't communicate focus to the body in any way.

notelliot · Nov 24, 2005

I'm going to make this stupid thing a slave to my eye. LOL i told my mother i'd buy her a new DSLR of her choice not exceeding 2thousand dollars (told her to look at the rebel XT) if she gave me her AE-1.

i'm that stubborn.