Custom Canon F-1

dynachrome · Jul 23, 2021

I hope I am doing this correctly. I haven't posted images in a while. A Canon F-1 arrived today from an eBay seller. According to the date code it was made in October of 1971. It has the back with one roller. At some point in the last nearly fifty years someone attached an accessory shoe to the standard prism finder. The accessory shoe looks like it may have come from a Mamiya 500 or 1000 DTL. The shoe seems to be attached pretty well and the finder comes off of the camera properly. Of course Canon made accessory shoes for the F-1 which either fit over the rewind knob like the Nikon and Topcon adapters or attached to the eyepiece with an arm extending to the slots on either side of the rewind crank. Maybe the person who made thhs modification just didn't want to pay for original Canon pieces. I wouldn't put a very heavy flash on this shoe but a light one might be fine.

mshchem · Jul 23, 2021

dynachrome said:
View attachment 280940 View attachment 280941
I hope I am doing this correctly. I haven't posted images in a while. A Canon F-1 arrived today from an eBay seller. According to the date code it was made in October of 1971. It has the back with one roller. At some point in the last nearly fifty years someone attached an accessory shoe to the standard prism finder. The accessory shoe looks like it may have come from a Mamiya 500 or 1000 DTL. The shoe seems to be attached pretty well and the finder comes off of the camera properly. Of course Canon made accessory shoes for the F-1 which either fit over the rewind knob like the Nikon and Topcon adapters or attached to the eyepiece with an arm extending to the slots on either side of the rewind crank. Maybe the person who made thhs modification just didn't want to pay for original Canon pieces. I wouldn't put a very heavy flash on this shoe but a light one might be fine.

Is the eyepiece ring holding it in place. Nice old camera!

mshchem · Jul 23, 2021

Sorry that was a question.

dynachrome · Jul 23, 2021

I can't unscrew the eyepiece. The shoe is either glued in place or it is attached to the finder with screws or some other method.

beemermark · Jul 23, 2021

While not a Canon product (I think) Pentax and maybe others made the cold shoe that just slips in behind the eyepiece. If you pull straight up does it come off?

RLangham · Jul 25, 2021

I've seen much worse. My DTL 1000, which was heavily "worked on" by someone I... I take for an idiot... has a cold shoe off some random camera spot-welded to the top of the pentaprism, with no spacer, so it's at an angle.

I've seen other cameras that must have been opened by incompetent people, as the mechanisms were damaged in a way that wasn't down to operational wear.

Some people modify their cameras. The only time I can think of having done something like this is when I replaced the graphic back on my Anniversary Speed Graphic 45 with the graphic back off my junky, almost-ruined Pacemaker SG 45, because the former was in perfect shape except the leather hood had lost its latch, so it wouldn't close, and the latter had the nice self-erecting metal hood.

It's nice you got an F-1. If you can get it off without damaging it, I would. But if you can't... hell, there's always other finders.

dynachrome · Jul 26, 2021

I have several other F-1 and F-1n cameras as well as the correct flash couplers. I tried to pull at the shoe and the eyepiece in all directions. For now I like the novelty factor of the shoe. I think I'll look for one of my Vivitar 252 flash units. The cord should reach the PC socket and it's not too heavy.

gone · Jul 27, 2021

They did a nice job from what I could see. I'm a Nikon guy (at least the cameras), but I once owned an F1 like yours and loved it. What a great camera. Mine had a beer can FD 135 2.5 lens on it, which made the whole package pretty heavy. The 135 lens was very, very good.

flavio81 · Aug 8, 2021

momus said:
They did a nice job from what I could see. I'm a Nikon guy (at least the cameras), but I once owned an F1 like yours and loved it. What a great camera. Mine had a beer can FD 135 2.5 lens on it, which made the whole package pretty heavy. The 135 lens was very, very good.

Yes, that 135/2.5 is one of the heaviest 135mm lenses i've ever seen. I had to sell mine, the weight was just too much. But the optical performance was superb.

However I kept my SMC Takumar 135/2.5, a much smaller lens, with also fantastic performance and what appears to be more sophisticated coatings.

flavio81 · Aug 8, 2021

dynachrome said:
View attachment 280940 View attachment 280941
I hope I am doing this correctly. I haven't posted images in a while. A Canon F-1 arrived today from an eBay seller. According to the date code it was made in October of 1971. It has the back with one roller. At some point in the last nearly fifty years someone attached an accessory shoe to the standard prism finder. The accessory shoe looks like it may have come from a Mamiya 500 or 1000 DTL. The shoe seems to be attached pretty well and the finder comes off of the camera properly. Of course Canon made accessory shoes for the F-1 which either fit over the rewind knob like the Nikon and Topcon adapters or attached to the eyepiece with an arm extending to the slots on either side of the rewind crank. Maybe the person who made thhs modification just didn't want to pay for original Canon pieces. I wouldn't put a very heavy flash on this shoe but a light one might be fine.

Well, of course that's a custom modification. Looks similar to the Pentax accesory shoe for the original Spotmatic.

It doesn't look nice but I bet it is extremely practical. I miss being able to put a flash on my F-1 cameras and someday i'll get one of the various flash couplers available for it.

Enjoy your F-1, i own many of them, perhaps my favorite camera.

dynachrome · Aug 8, 2021

The camera is out for an overhaul. I asked the repairman to leave the accessory shoe on. With any luck, I'll have it back this week. I have a number of examples of the mentioned 135/2.5 FD SC. My 135/2.5 Pentax lens is a Super Takumar.

Custom Canon F-1

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