Question about the Canon A-1

Markster · Jan 24, 2011

There's another 35mm SLR that will go into auto exposure mode for a given aperature you set. You set F5.6 (for example) and it will hold the shutter open for as long as it needs to properly light the negative, even on the order of 15 minutes or so (from some comments I have read).

Does the Canon A-1, with all of its different program modes, also do this? Or does it only choose the shutter speed amongst those on the selection dial (which tops out at 30 seconds from what I understand)?

Meaning, if you shoot it on one of the auto modes, will it go for as long as it thinks is needed to get the shot? Or will it cut off at 30 seconds regardless of the light?

Just curious with regards to the functionality of the A-1 for night time shots.

2F/2F · Jan 24, 2011

There is a pdf manual online, or maybe you can find a paper one on E-Bay. For the pdf, go to www.google.com, type in canon A-1 manual (no quotes), and go down to the sixth link.

IMHO, it doesn't matter in practice, as using the in-camera meter with auto exposure for a long exposure on a tripod makes no sense to me. You are taking the time to set up a tripod, and waiting there for however long the shutter needs to be open for all the frames you want to shoot. The in-camera meter loses its only benefit over a hand held meter in that situation, as you do not need to move very quickly or pack light. Additionally, night scenes often have a lot of contrast, which is the hardest thing for an in-camera meter to expose correctly. My point is that even if the camera could keep the shutter open as long as it needs to, if you wanted best results, that is not how you would expose the film most of the time. I suggest an educated guess and/or exposure charts for night photography. A spot meter can work sometimes too.

ozphoto · Jan 24, 2011

I had an A1 and from memory, it was identical to the AE1-Programme except that it could also be used in fully manual mode. As such, it would read the scene and adjust exposure accordingly to the amount of light needed for the selected aperture.

Check this out for the manual:

http://www.butkus.org/chinon/canon/canon_a-1/canon_a-1.htm

Les Sarile · Jan 24, 2011

It can be in complete darkness but the A-1 will max out at 30 seconds. It must be a design philosophy as even the latest and greatest Canons function this way.

When it comes to very long aperture priority auto exposure the Pentax LX and the Olympus OM-2 & OM-4 are the leaders. The Nikons are also capable of very long exposures but unlike the LX, OM2/4, they will not alter the exposure which is determined at the time the shutter fires. The Minoltas max out at about 20 seconds.

benjiboy · Jan 24, 2011

If you give 15 minute exposures with an A1 even on"B" since it's an electro- magnetic shutter and uses battery power to hold the shutter open, your battery won't last long.

Tony-S · Jan 24, 2011

I'm sure the reason why no autoexposure over 30" is due to reciprocity failure - different films behave differently. This is why we have bulb.

hpulley · Jan 24, 2011

First, most meters are out of their metering range for such long exposures. They don't really meter down to such low light to require a 15 minute exposure even at f/22.

Next, as mentioned above most films have reciprocity failure over 1 second so even a 30s exposure is useless with the meter most of the time. That 30s exposure may need to be 300s to compensate for reciprocity failure.

Markster · Jan 24, 2011

Hrm... I didn't know that. How, then, do you get any semblance of night-time shots without wasting an entire roll of film bracketting from 1/2 second to 5 minutes?

Also, from general commentary and user reviews, folks say the Pentax LX auto exposure does great for night-time shots in excess of several minutes. This is one reason why I was recently curious about the A1.

holmburgers · Jan 24, 2011

Something about night exposures; barring really bright light sources in your shot, it's very hard to overexpose and very easy to underexpose. Therefore, it's best to pick a time and go for it.

FWIW, the Canon EF (FD camera, not the new lenses) has a meter that will go to EV -2 which is quite low, and the shutter is mechanical on B. So get a cable release, a tripod and just give it a shot. As mentioned, long exposures with an electrically controlled shutter is a bad idea.

My most successful night shot was 20 minutes a f/8 (I think) in a emply lot downtown with a ton of people watching a movie projected on the side of a parking garage. It was with Delta 100, and streets in the background with typical street lights were well overexposed, yet retrievable thru significant dodging, while the audience came out quite well. I don't know what good my example will do you, but I'd recommend picking a time and trying it out. You'll soon get a feel for it and won't have to bracket, waste film or anything.

What kind of night shots are you imagining? There is a wide range of potentials; from starry nights in the country to night time city scapes; all with widely varying exposure requirements.

Markster · Jan 24, 2011

Good question. I am not locked into any 1 specific type, but as a bit of a stargazer I think of someday getting time exposure, time laps, or some other type of starry sky photos. Perhaps lunar as well (but that's much brighter, less of an issue with shutter speeds). Other thoughts/plans include scenery such as hills/grassy-areas, just lit by general moonlight. My mother's favorite is to look at the city lights after sunset when you drive over the top of a hill, so naturally I also think of something to capture the lights and colors (less so the terrain).

Funny enough (unrelated side-note), last trip I took I tried a few bulb photos of the city lights below my plane as we were taking off at night. I braced the camera fairly well, held my breath and did everything but rest it against the window, and the lights still came out like EKG readouts (lol!) -- the plane itself was bouncing around even if I was relatively stable inside it!. Actually... makes for an interesting shot IMO.

I figure once you know how to work with any one of these examples listed above, you can figure from there how to get to the next example. I figured it might be easier to let the camera do the math for me, but it seems that's not the best thing to do.

holmburgers · Jan 24, 2011

Here, go down to the list of real-world examples.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposure_value

Some meters can go down to EV -6 I believe. Also, depending on what you decide upon, Cds meters (Cadmium sulfide), typical of 70's SLR's might take as much as 10+ seconds to "adjust" to the real light level. Hold the meter down, and don't be surprised if in 12 seconds the needle starts to move to a different position.

Markster · Jan 24, 2011

Wow... Thanks for the link. It's a bit more complex than I thought.

DWThomas · Jan 24, 2011

I have an A-1, and according to the manual, the A-1 goes down to EV -2 -- that's like 8 seconds at f1.4 on ISO 100 film. Maybe I'm just into the sloppy and imprecise but I find for night shooting, and also pinhole shooting, where long exposures are involved it's easy to forget that going from 1 minute to 2 minutes is only a one-stop increase in exposure -- actually less when reciprocity is factored in. If there are some bright areas or lights in the scene, practically any exposure will get you something, the problem is how well it correlates with what you envison in the result. Since it's night, you may not want everything to look like it was 3:00 in the afternoon. If shooting B&W, I would likely bracket in two or three stop increments which would cover a lot of range without using up much film.

(I just this very afternoon got back some Provia 100F bearing shots of the Winter Solstice lunar eclipse. The lens was only 210 mm, but virtually every frame has something on it, even after it was into the total "red" phase and I used 20 and 30 second exposures at about f5.6. Of course all the shots are rather small! Two and a half weeks to get E6 done in the Philly area -- less use begets longer turn-around begets less use ... Alas, I fear a death spiral here.)

hpulley · Jan 24, 2011

For astrophotography get a book, there are many that will give you advice. For the moon the phase matters as it is thousands of times brighter at full than when photographing earthshine on a new moon thin crescent. Start from the book suggestions, do some bracketing and after a few rolls you'll get the hang of it.

Yeah, 210mm is short for the Moon. I have an 1800mm f/9 telescope I use for that and for closeups you can use a 2x teleconverter or more but then you need a lunar tracking mount as well. Gets complicated and expensive very quickly like the rest of this hobby seems to be...

Les Sarile · Jan 24, 2011

Pentax LX EV -6.5 to +20 with +-2EV compensation
Olympus OM4T EV -5 to +19 with +-2EV compensation + spot metering

The A1 might have a wide exposure range, unfortunately, it's AE mode terminates at 30 seconds regardless while the LX and OM4 continuously monitors the scene and cuts off or extends exposure time as needed.

It's easy enough to verify your meter's accuracy if you have a handheld spot meter (or known good reference) by comparing at reasonable levels and just adding stops and confirming that the exposure times are in line with it and then go expose some film to see if it is. Best to use slides if you're verifying your meters accuracy due to it's narrower latitude and no interpretation needed. C41 is typically much wider than E6 and depending on how you view it, interpretation of results can be very subjective.

I look at it as reciprocity characteristics rather than failure. No camera ever made can account for this, or cross processing, hi key, etc. These are all film features that will all have to be learned as you shoot them.

Jeff Kubach · Jan 24, 2011

It is a great camera none the less!

Jeff

Les Sarile · Jan 24, 2011

Markster said:
Hrm... I didn't know that. How, then, do you get any semblance of night-time shots without wasting an entire roll of film bracketting from 1/2 second to 5 minutes?.

I used to assume that my EOS3 would "properly meter" a night scene in aperture priority autoexposure mode. This of course resulted in grossly underexposed shots, as it was past the automatic cutoff. In the Canon manual, it does not specifically state it will cutoff the exposure time at 30 seconds just that the 30 shutter speed blinks indicating underexposure. This is the same for my EOS-1V.

In all fairness, I have not seen this particular functionality specifically identified - cutoff or otherwise, in all my other camera manuals. Of course, I may have missed it, but at least now I know how each of my aperture priority auto exposure camera works as I had tested this.

Question about the Canon A-1

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