History Lesson – 1959 Canonflex
December 21st, 2008 Posted in Canon History, Canon Lenses
Something different
Weekends can be pretty slow for news and rumors, but I still want to add content. So I’m going to try a few history lessons for the folks out there. I’m in the process of collecting various Canon cameras. I’ll give a brief history lesson every so often about each of them.
Canon’s first SLR Camera Body
I finally acquired one of these historical Canon camera bodies yesterday.
Released: March 1959
Discontinued: August 1959
Production: 17,000 Units (Compared to the Nikon F which shipped 862,000.)
Weirdness: Bottom winder. You could wind pretty fast, but don’t try to use a tripod!
Feature: Removable Pentaprism
CR Guy's Canonflex
You can read more about the Canonflex here: http://www.cameraquest.com/canonflx.htm
cr
December 21st, 2008 at 5:46 pm
That’s a pretty sweet looking SLR.
That light meter is big.
Does everything work on it?
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December 21st, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Oh yeah it works. I spent a few dollars getting the shutter going again. The light meter is also about two stops off. Great condition otherwise.
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December 22nd, 2008 at 9:03 am
Could the light meter be off because of the battery voltage? I know most of those type cameras used Mercury batteries, and modern equivalents aren’t quite right. Adapters are sold to correct and regulate the voltage.
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December 22nd, 2008 at 9:55 am
The guy that fixed the shutter said the “cells were weak”. Nothing could be done about that. I might try to find a better working meter.
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December 22nd, 2008 at 10:55 am
I like the “history lesson” bit. Keep ‘em coming. It’s a nice touch seeing where the industry and photogs have come from.
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December 23rd, 2008 at 2:55 am
Dang, you got yours already?? I’m on the pre-order list… Now we can start complaining about autofocus! ;)
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December 23rd, 2008 at 11:47 am
That 50mm looks well built, I guess in some ways we have gone backwards since then!
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December 23rd, 2008 at 4:54 pm
Thats the first one of these I’ve seen. The older cameras like this are pretty rare.
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March 18th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
Every time i come here I am not dissapointed, nice post
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October 14th, 2009 at 12:47 am
Cool! I love the older cameras, I like the whole ritual of film, shooting the roll, developing it myself and pouring over the negs and then hitting a zen like state while dodging and burning.
I sometimes take my Mamiya M645 Super out on photo walks just to see the expressions on peoples faces on seeing something so funky.
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October 14th, 2009 at 1:01 am
Nice old camera. I had an old Nikon F, and Nikomat FT pass through my hands a few months back, they weren’t as nice looking though. Have you tracked down a WLF yet?
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October 14th, 2009 at 2:01 am
*yawn* no direct print button? ;)
no really, awesome thing, i envy you for this one
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October 14th, 2009 at 2:52 am
Wonder what the noise characteristics is like – any good at ISO6400?
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October 14th, 2009 at 3:00 am
No Direct print button, what a shame – makes it worthless.
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October 14th, 2009 at 11:38 am
About the meter, is it a Cds or selenium meter? All meters of a certain older vintage use selenium light sensors which require no battery power to both sense the light and power the meter’s moving parts. If Cds, it requires a battery, the voltage of which, as a previous poster pointed out, will affect meter accuracy. Obviously, that is irrelevant with the older battery-less selenium models. So, if the meter is a selenium one, the only possible reason for gross meter innacuracy is the condition of the selenium cell itself, and it is not amenable to a “fix,” but requires replacement instead.
Regards
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Canon Rumors Reply:
October 14th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
No battery is required. Age kills the cells I’m told.
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living brain donor Reply:
October 14th, 2009 at 11:32 pm
It’s definitely a selenium cell meter. The CDS meters didn’t require all of that surface area.
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October 14th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
I can’t imagine what the Moire and Aliasing must look like on this old thing… and you just know that even back then, Canon had the solutions to all those problems, but they were just holding out to sell us the next 1960 version of the same camera.
…and the sarcasm stops ;)
That’s an awesome find, man!
19-effin’-59!!! And it looks a better camera than my old Minolta from 1980. It actually looks like they designed to be taken into a War-Zone. Especially that lens. Nice.
Are you keeping it in a safe-deposit box?
I think I would be.
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October 14th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
Looks like canon have come a long way these 50 years. I wonder if 50 years from now, we’ll look back at the 7D or 1D Mark IV and say, “wow, 18 MP back then, how cute”
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October 14th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
The sheer size of the metering lens array tells me it is the selenium type of meter. It could be that the selenium photovoltaic sell is weak or dirty, or that the meter’s magnet has lost some magnetism over the years. In either case, open it up and look for a means of adjusting or calibrating it. It might have an adjustable or replaceable resistor in the circuit.
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October 15th, 2009 at 7:14 am
It’s certainly selenium, like the meter on Leica M3 (which attached to hot shoe). Mine is also not working anymore, I’ll see if I can repair it. The advantage was: no batteries, some say better for colors (at that time).
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October 16th, 2009 at 5:21 am
Wow, it’s amazing how similar this looks to the rest of the whole pre-electronic Canon slr line!
The dual lens aperture rings are confusing: which of the two aperture-numbered rings actually turns, and why are there two?
Jason.
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October 17th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
[...] la descatalogan, venden 17.000 unidades, Nikon con su superestrella F vende 862.000 unidades. History Lesson – 1959 Canonflex | Canon Rumors slds. __________________ Cuando no es un pito, es una [...]
October 18th, 2009 at 1:27 am
at least the print button was hidden back then…
Seriously …I really like how the old mechanical lenses were build and how they looked…
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October 18th, 2009 at 11:03 am
Were did you find this gem? I’m a photo student that is collecting all the cool older cameras I can find but this one has eluded me for quite some time now. Beautiful camera.
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