![]() This is around 10% of the viewfinder area. When you mount a lens on the FTb only the possible aperture range of the lens is available AND the needle auto-ranges based on the lens plus there’s a rectangle in the viewfinder which gives you the spot where the meter will take its reading from. Many match needle systems have all possible readings in the system which means the display can be crowded. Metering with the FTb is simplicity itself, like the Minolta SRT101 it uses a match needle arrangement but unlike many match needle systems Canon really used their noodles and the meter only covers the range of apertures the mounted lens can support. Painshill Park captured with Canon FTb 50 mm F1.8 lens and Fuji Technical 100 ASA film ![]() Solid in the hands with slick and positive feel the Canon FTb is a complete delight to shoot with. It’s all helped by the weight and solid construction of the Canon FTb which helps cut down any vibration. But, like the pro-level F1 the humble FTb has silky smooth operation, a slick winder, easily one of the best shutter release pull-offs of anything I have ever shot and on top of that thanks to what Canon called the ‘Shockless Mirror System’ – the camera is smooth as silk on firing with almost no vibration or mirror slap. ![]() The cutbacks aren’t very much for most people to worry about today – the Canon FTb lost the interchangeable prisms, focus screens and motor drive, and the titanium shutter curtain and replaced this with rubberised silk. A modern user won’t miss the interchangeable prism or focus screen because even if you could find one for the F1 the price would be as much as for the camera. The Canon FTb was among the last of the super high-quality cameras designed for the serious amateur photographer and was in production from 1971 to 1976 when the AE-1 supplanted it as Canons leading pro-sumer camera.īuilt to the same standards as the Canon F1 professional line camera the FTb had to lose a few features to get the price right for the serious amateur (the F1 was aimed squarely at the deep-pocketed pros). ![]() The FTb though comes from a period when excellence came as standard and feels like it was designed by people who actually used cameras rather than a consumerist piece of plastic. The AE-1 may well have been a big seller but its success came not from excellence of the product but a multi million dollar advertising campaign. The AE-1 paved the way for Canons dominance of the market but it’s a shame that in the rush forward for technology old fashioned virtues like longevity got trampled underfoot. There’s an old German saying that 10,000 flies can’t be wrong and that may well be true -but just look at what they are buzzing around! After all the AE-1 revived Canon’s fortunes and went on to become the best selling SLR of all time but hype and volume doesn’t mean good. I can’t hardly blame Canon for wanting to move the world forward to plastic, electronic junk like the Canon AE-1 and its progeny. The FTb just goes to show that if anyone can Canon could….at least back then. Manufactured from metal hammered out by Canon and just maybe, the best camera to ever come out of Canon, at least according to this Canon FTb Review! Sadly, it’s been so forgotten that even me, a serious photographer when the FTb was in its heyday, had forgotten all about it entirely until I was browsing a camera store in Tokyo and spotted one. But, it is the forgotten wonder from the days when stuff was built to last. Of all the cameras being hyped by today’s uber-trendy wunderkinds on the web like the Canon AE-1, the Minolta X-700 and the Pentax K1000, the FTb is noticeable by its absence.
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