Canon AE-1, broken rewind knob, can I fix?

[dawn]

I really want to use this camera, it belonged to my great uncle. My cousin has had it since he passed away in 2002.

The rewind knob is missing, and the inside part of it is inside the camera. Is there a way to manually open the door without the knob?

 

[2WheelPhoto]

there are usually a ton of ae-1 "parts" bodies for sale on fleabay for pennies

 

[dawn]

Yup, that was my plan. But not my question. I need to get the door open before I can do anything else.

 

[dawn]

Awesome, I got it open with a paperclip, and the knob winder was actually in the bag still. So I have a functional camera. I'm excited to go back to film manual. I loved photography when I was using my old Praktica MTL5B. I went to auto film, then digital. Photography got boring. When I could take hundreds of photos, I stopped spending time composing the photos.

 

[elissam]

@dawn
what exactly did you do with the paper clip to get the film door to open? (pictures would really help) I'm having the same issue...