Canon T50 SLR

Dean_Gretsch

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A friend brought his late parents' camera in today for me to see. It has a couple lenses with it : a Korean 28mm macro and a Sears 60-300mm ( also made in Korea ). Looking at the T50 camera bodies on Ebay, I can see you can pick them up pretty cheaply. Anyone have any thoughts or memories of using a T50? Were they popular or very well reviewed? Thanks!
 
Memories....one of my dad's best friends and lodge buddies LOVED his Canon T70....when the shutter got damaged, be bought a used one from a local pawn shop rather than fix up the original T70. The T50 is similar in many ways to the T70.

At the time, these were radical camera departures! A 35mm SLR, with NO manual film advance? Automatic, built-in winder? Incredibly dumbed-down controls? As in almost no control wheels or dials. John LOVE the pictures he got shooting Kodacolor Gold 200 print film. He had a Canon speedlight, and a 50mm lens, and one other lens. Based on era, that other lens was likely a 35-70mm, which he used most of the time. At the time, he was about 55 years old, and I was about 22, and heavy into Nikon 35mm gear. I totally did not "get" the T70 idea.

Looking back on it, the T70 was like a giant Instamatic--but with high-grade Canon FD lenses, powerful speedlights, and incredible battery life for the film advance/shutter cocking. It had easy loading. It truly was a camera for those who wanted good pictures, but who had zero interest in cameras, or settings, or anything photo-hobby related. The T70 and T50 have sort of become cult classic cameras. The shutter was run in part by magnets, AMAS (???), so the batteries lasted a loooooong time! Many,many rolls!

At the time of the T70 and T50, the Pentax K1000 was **the**camera to teach mechanical, traditional photography, with the user being responsible for EVERY step in the entire process: these two Canons were the exact, polar opposite. Highly automated, stripped down, just picture-shootin' machines. LIke an iPhone: SIMPLE. Good pictures.
 
@Dean_Gretsch , @Derrel . I have the T70 and as Derrel said pretty much the same camera. I like mine well enough but it doesn't really give you a manual mode, but not a deal breaker. Pretty much program, program wide, and TV. It's loud and funky sounding, kinda fun to shoot with. I have the 277T flash with it and it is flipping powerful, got to be careful indoors but works sweet outdoors. Mine is loaded with Porta 160 right now. There is a learning curve on the metering so read up on that. Here are some samples of the first two rolls I shot with it. They really are nice camera's but a little quirky, who cares as long as you have fun. Oh, I almost forgot, I got some great tips on it from Ken Rockwell. Just google Canon T70, he mentions the T50 in the same article. He gave tips on how to EC with it and very helpful.

1. FD50mm 1.8' just a slight straighten in post
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2. FD50mm 1.8; slight straighten in post is all
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3. FD100mm 1:4 macro, no edit at all. Flash 277T, Hedgcoe project Derrel helped me with when using my digital and I applied his direction with film to see if I really understood what his instruction was. I had strings with knots, tape measures, oh my that was fun.
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