Well, one of you any way….

Neice wants a Canon 35mm film SLR for christmas and they seem to be well cheap! £15-20 on ebay. Can anyone tell me what the numbers mean please? EOS 30, 100, 200, 750, 1000 do the number go up or down in terms of moregooderness?

Assume she wants Canon so she can share lenses with her DSLR.

In Canon world, the more numbers in the product code the lower down the range it is.

So e.g. eos 1000 is lower and eos 1 is high end.

Note depending on what lenses she has for her DSLR they might not fit on the older SLR. The Canon EF-S mount was introduced for APS-C crop sensor Canon DSLR bodies and whilst EF mount lenses fit on DSLRs, the EF-S lenses DO NOT fit on the SLR EF mount.

Worth noting that if she has aps-c lenses (which I think would be for anything below the 5D level of DSLR) then they won’t work well with film (the image won’t fill the film). I think canon have fairly good backwards compatibility of newer lenses on old film cameras, for some reason their film cameras don’t seem to be that popular these days so it is harder to find compatibility info than for Nikon. At the kind of prices you are talking then it might be worth just giving it a go!

Cool, cheers for that. Thats a bummer about the lenses, hopefully she knows this already….although her birthday is in Jan….

I’d be happy to spend a bit more if theres something that would be better.

I would just go the whole hog and get an older SLR with a manual focus lens. They are lovely to use and most have inbuilt exposure metering to help with the exposure. The EOS range have no appeal to me as they are getting closer to digital camera but could be just what she is after.

As said above, definately get her to check her lenses.

Any Canon EF-S lenses will not work and may not even fit correctly. The AF-S lenses project a smaller image than 35mm film requires, and some of the lenses protrude into the camera body and would foul the mirror on a film camera. Same goes for third party lenses which are made for smaller sensors. Definately check.

If she does have appropriate lenses, then the EOS 30 or 33 (Elan 7 / 7E) is a fantastic camera. It was my last film camera before moving completely to digital and I am still slightly sad it got stolen during a break in. Along with the EOS-7 it was one of the last film cameras Canon released which was aimed at enthusiasts – both still feel good alongside the modern digital cameras.

From a numbers perspective, the more digits the model has, the lower down the range it is. So the EOS30 is better (by quite a margin) than the EOS300 but after that it doesn’t scale quite as well sideways. Generally the lower the start number (the 3 in EOS33 or the 1 in EOS100) the more feature rich a camera is compared to others with the same number of digits. Confused yet? yea… well played Canon 🙂

I would just go the whole hog and get an older SLR with a manual focus lens. They are lovely to use and most have inbuilt exposure metering to help with the exposure. The EOS range have no appeal to me as they are getting closer to digital camera but could be just what she is after.

This. Absolutely. A good manual film camera is an absolute joy to use wheras an EOS film camera is much more a tool to get the job done.

I’ve asked my sister to check her lenses, red dot/white square…

I’m watching an EOS 30 on ebay. She’s specified EOS but not sure if it’s all she knows at the moment, for the money if it gets her going with film then great, she might want to upgrade later on.

I’d also echo the above opinions re. a manual film camera with manual focus lenses. A very different and engaging experience to a DSLR or an SLR.

Do you know her reasoning for wanting a film camera?

Budget dependent you could probably pick up a body and kit lenses fairly cheaply anyway, especially if buying a system that’s not compatible with current DSLR’s.

I would just go the whole hog and get an older SLR with a manual focus lens. They are lovely to use and most have inbuilt exposure metering to help with the exposure. The EOS range have no appeal to me as they are getting closer to digital camera but could be just what she is after.

+1

I would just go the whole hog and get an older SLR with a manual focus lens. They are lovely to use and most have inbuilt exposure metering to help with the exposure.

+1

Get and oldie with M42 lens mount and there a million lenses to choose from on ebay. I just bought a Zeiss 135mm for pocket money and it is absolutely stunning. My go-to macro even on digital is an old Ozunon. I have a Pentax 500mm reflex that’s returned some tidy bird shots. Praktika MTL5 would be my first port of call. A kilogramme of East German klunking loveliness.

Do you know her reasoning for wanting a film camera?

She did photography GCSE and is now doing A-Level (I think) and has a keen interest. I assume this is just another string to add to the bow sort of thing/wants to know how we used to do it….

In Canon world, the more numbers in the product code the lower down the range it is.

So e.g. eos 1000 is lower and eos 1 is high end.

Yep.

In the digital arena, successive numbers are model replacements. So the 400D was a mid-range camera which was superseded by the 450D, which was replaced by the 500D, etc etc… Of note perhaps is that a newer entry-level camera could be better than an older higher-end one. I don’t know much about 35mm cameras but I’d assume that the dSLR naming convention simply followed their SLR predecessors.

There’s a model comparison chart on Wikipedia for Canon dSLRs. Might be worth a look to see if there’s one for SLRs too.

Thats a bummer about the lenses, hopefully she knows this already…

It would seem a bit odd for her to want a film camera, and a specific brand at that, yet not know what lenses it takes.

I just want to get her what she wants at the moment. I will relay all this back to her though.

I like it when I can actually engage with the young uns on something they’re interested in, rather than just being sad old geeky bike man uncle Adam…

Thought – does she already have a Canon dSLR? That would explain why she wants a Canon SLR, she may already have lenses.

It would seem a bit odd for her to want a film camera, and a specific brand at that, yet not know what lenses it takes.

Shes a 16 year old kid, just starting out in the wonderful world of camera/lens compatibility…..

Thought – does she already have a Canon dSLR? That would explain why she wants a Canon SLR, she may already have lenses.

Yep, I think thats why she wants ans EOS 35mm. Cos it’s the same…ish….

My sister is checking her lenses, but I reckon some are EF fitment.

I have an old nikon film slr, but the temptation to get a film medium format is always there. They just feel amazing to use

The, excuse me, canonical way to tell is that EF lenses will have a red spot on the face of the mount, EF-S lenses a white square. (And of course, it’s probably written on the lens body.)

If she has any, the most likely EF candidate is the “nifty fifty” 50mm f1.8 prime lens. It’s a full-frame lens, a brilliant piece of glass, and dirt cheap (I think I paid something like £40 for mine). If she doesn’t have one, it’d make a brilliant present to go with the camera. 😁

£45 delivered.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/p/99997672?iid=185657360794

The f1.4 50mm USM is very nice. My favorite lens on my Canon DSLR that one of my children now has. Works like an 80mm on the APS-C sensor but such lovely bokeh and such sharp focus.

I’ve still got an EOS 33. Keep looking to resurrect it, as it’s what I did a couple of courses on. Lovely thing

What puts me off is a) price of film (£8 a roll?), and b) cost of development (£10 a roll). So – with postage – let’s call that £20 for 36 shots that you don’t know if they’re any good. Kodak went bust for a reason.

So yes, an old SLR is cheap (tried selling the 33 to Wex and MPB recently; neither would touch it). And lenses are cheap – check out MPB for the complete range of old cheap EF lenses https://www.mpb.com/en-uk/category/used-photo-and-video-lenses/dslr-lenses/dslr-canon-fit-lenses?sort%5BproductPrice%5D=ASC. But costs build up. And it’ll be a big drain on a teenage budget.

She’ll be used to snapping away incessantly, as that’s what you do with digital (phone or camera). Surely the thing to do is to practice not firing off loads of shots, but taking it full manual on the existing camera (maybe supplemented with some old school fast primes from MPB). Then, if she still likes old school composition, and precision, that’ll be the time to invest in the older, less user friendly, set up.

The other issue with Canon is that EF lenses and dSLRs are now not being built. Canon has gone completely mirrorless with RF lenses, and R bodies. Completely incompatible with EOS cameras. It does mean lots of bargains in old cameras, but repairing replacing could be tricky (but you can use EF on R cameras with an adapter). An EOS 5D mark 1 (so full frame, which gives the ability to use better, and more lenses) in excellent condition is £204 at MPB, with a six month warranty. Full frame vs APS-c would introduce noticeable differences with the narrower depth of field…a whole new way of looking at things

Cheers all, some good info there, I’m just going off a text my sister sent me, Just wanted to know if there was a 100, 300 and a 750 all for the same price which is the the one to get really. And you’ve all been quite reserved really, was expecting some to tell me I need to spend hundreds to get anything decent!

Good website that though petec, once my sister has chacked out what lenses they have I might pick one up so she can use what ever body I get. I won’t be paying film and developement, but i’ll let my BIL know he might have to add a few more quid onto his invoices…

I would just go the whole hog and get an older SLR with a manual focus lens. They are lovely to use and most have inbuilt exposure metering to help with the exposure. The EOS range have no appeal to me as they are getting closer to digital camera but could be just what she is after.

Yeah, this +`1. I had Canons bitd but whenever I did any paid work I would hire lenses and a manual Nikon body. Can’t remember which one now…F2? Better choice of lenses, more intuitive to use compared to the Canon, even though I owned a series of Canons.

See if you can hunt out a F2, or FM2 which is probably loads cheaper.

To be honest, the model spec on film cameras was much less important than it is on DSLRs

A film camera is essentially a light tight box, it was always the lenses that made the difference.

On the more expensive models, you were paying for increased shutter speed, number of autofocus points and maybe environmental sealing. Probably nothing worth getting too worried about for a starter camera. I think it will be the film processing/darkroom part that your niece will be interested in (rather than the camera).

The eos33 is probably as good a camera as she will need and will still feel familiar enough if she already has a canon DSLR. I sold my old one for about £30.

EOS 650 was the 1st, and is a good starting point – pretty cheap and may have a lens for under £40. EOS50E can be had for a tenner, and is an all singing camera with eye control focus. I use a new 40mm EF lens, and the results are decent enough.

Another +1 for going down the simple, old school manual focus root, especially as she’s looking to do it at A Level. It’s the sort of camera that generations of photography students have learned on and for good reason.

However a cheap old eos will be great as well, it’s just that as others have said, unless she’s got a very expensive DSLR the lenses will cut the picture frame in half.

Any cheap body with a 50mm 1.8 lens for aboit £50 Will ba great. (If you can stretch to ma 1.4 lens then the images will have an amazing quality).

Oh, and for the most part zoom lenses are crap.

Been mentioned but I’d talk to her about going the other way – getting some vintage glass that will fit her dSLR (even if via an adapter). I have a couple of ’60s primes that are just beautiful things to use. Will generally force her into manual focus and possibly exposure too.

Or, head on over to https://shop.lomography.com/uk/cameras/all and see what’s about there at the other end of the filmic goodness spectrum.

Definitely get a manual SLR. Canon A1 was the goto for consumer Canon. Or a Nikon FM. Both with a standard 50mm f1.8 lens and a 24mm f2 for some composition fun. The Nikon doesn’t need a battery for anything other than the meter, which you can guess anyway. These cameras are silly cheap now – except the pro Canon F1 which is what you should get her if you want serious unclepoints(TM).

Look for Pentax K mount, my K3 has about 35 pieces of glass to mate with, some fantastic some not so good but most from the 1980’s
I can’t be arsed going back to film camera my me super just lies sleeping

I’ve got a Canon AE1 SLR complete with a range of lenses both fixed and zoom from 28mm to 200mm with flashes, filters etc which I’d happily sell for cheap but as I’m in Spain, getting it to the UK is probably more costly than it’s worth.

Used to shoot loads of film pre lockdown, during which my chemicals expired and the price of film went up. Haven’t got back into it yet.

My 2p: even if she’s got Canon lenses, don’t discount Pentax etc. What do you need, other than a 35 and 50 prime? As others have said, if you could find an (eg) OM1 with its kit prime, it’s far more rewarding an experience than an EOS in manual mode.

What is she doing about developing & enlarging (or scanning?)

I’ve an old Eos 300 (well the rebel equivalent as Jessops seemed to have American stock in 2001).

The EF lenses I have still fit it.

I imagine that’s what she is thinking. Everything else seems to have been said

We had eos, bitd, at work, but I always carried a Pentax with a motor wind on it, much nicer. The eos were for people who couldn’t really use a camera, just stick it on “running man” and click!
Our “rural” guys used Nikon fm2’s great, tough bits of kit.