Nikon and Canon hold the high end both because they're actually making money selling cameras (well, Nikon not so much but certainly more than Olympus and Pentax; Minolta went broke and got folded into Sony's lineup and has been pretty much subsumed by Sony's own lens mount). What makes CaNikon the professional choice, though, beyond things like weatherproofed bodies and lenses and a wide lineup of lenses and accessories, is professional service -- loaner lenses, fast turnaround for repairs, etc. -- for people who are buying professional-level cameras and who can't have them down for too long. Not every CaNikon buyer qualifies for professional service, either. But Sony barely offers it and the others? Not at all.
Unless that AE-1 already had a CLA by someone who was a Canon tech (at one time or another), $80 even for the kit is too much money. If you're willing to wait until you find a deal at some thrift store or yard sale, keep looking, assuming the price of a look-over by a tech is part of the purchase cost.
Another option might be to buy from either a local camera store (if your area still has any; they'll weed out the troublesome ones or at least warrant them for a while) or from an outfilt called KEH (obvious URL). KEH prices by the condition of the item, but even their "BGN" (Bargain) level is trusty, even if it looks like it's been through a war. I've bought BGN lenses from them and been very happy with them.
bae, anything with the red Leica dot on it is $$$$. It's wonderful gear to use, but it does not take a better picture than a properly-operating AE-1. That's up to the person pushing the button. On the other hand, the Leica gear will forever be worth far more than the AE-1 (unless it was Canon's "Job 1" AE-1, I suppose).
And, yes, B&W film is out there. So is processing, though most places don't do B&W locally anymore because of the lack of demand.
Have fun hunting, Williamsmith!
Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome. - Booker T. Washington
Canon AE-1 is what I used, although I haven't used it in a while. When the original one I had died, I got a replacement off of Ebay and that worked fine - but definitely buyer beware on older cameras on Ebay.
I am in and out of antique stores often. Yesterday, I happened to be in one and I happened to be standing in front of a display that included the third Canon AE-1 of the day. It felt like I was destined to take it home. Upon examination, it appeared to be in near perfect condition and it came with a 52mm lens and strap. I hemmed and hawed around so much that the wife finally reminded me how long I have been shopping for one and gave me the incredulous eye when I told her I wasn't sure. At $50, it was the best price I had seen.
I settled on the AE-1 due to the ease of finding compatible accessories. And it can be used in the manual mode or programmable for auto exposure. But it is definitely not a computer and belongs to the analog revolution. So begins my journey. I don't have any great expectations for artistry. I simply want to capture images that in and of themselves evoke a feeling for me. Whatever that means....I'm not sure yet but I believe portraits can be in that class and some of the most powerful images I've seen .....are faces.
One more step back from the digital world. I was listening the an interview with Neil Young regarding digital music. It is fascinating to me how much of the analog sound is lost in the digital universe. I wonder if photography is similar?
Congratulations! It should be a fun project. From what I know, digital can capture more detail than analog, but there is a unique richness and depth with film that is hard to match.
In some respects I think it is. The first digital cameras (digital SLRs, to keep comparing apples) did not offer the color rendition and dynamic range that film did/does. People complained that the first CDs sounded rather tinny and grainy, compared to vinyl.
But digital optics improved very rapidly, and, a few years ago, digital passed film in dynamic range. Used to be that pushing film to ASA 400 gave you a grainy picture -- but at least an image you got in low light. Now DSLR users routinely bump ASA to 1600 or higher with pretty much no ill effect -- and the option of denoising software to use afterward. I also remember when the brand of film chosen depended on whether you preferred Kodacolor's reddish cast or Fuji's bluish cast or Agfa's relative lack of saturation. Some people liked the pop of Kodachrome over other slide films; others found it garish. I can argue about the quality of Canon's JPEGs out of camera and my preference for Nikon's JPEGs. But that is arguing over trivial things compared to color cast and saturation. And I can fix that in post-processing, too.
I sometimes wonder how much of the fond comparison, though, is ... well, romantic. The sound-equalization curve used on most records -- RIAA -- only covers frequencies between 30 Hz and 15,000 KHz -- not near the limits of human hearing then or now. Except that most of the people who are old enough to have used a record player to listen to current music back in the day probably have hearing now that's no better than 30-15KHz.
How much of "that good old analog sound" came from sound engineers who had had 70-80 years to perfect recording and playing back that sound; how much of that declaration is from people who like real mac-and-cheese but are just "okay" with it because it doesn’t taste like the definitional "blue box" of their childhood; and how much of it comes from acoustic factors we cannot yet measure definitively?
Full disclosure: I still have a few hundred LPs I enjoy listening to and, in cases of a duplicate LP and CD album, have kept the LP. Most of what I listen to, though, is digital -- either my own stuff, streamed, or Internet radio.
William, congratulations on re-acquiring an AE-1. Great camera and just as good at images now as it ever was. Have fun with it!
Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome. - Booker T. Washington
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