Ha... dusting off my "back in the day" file... Worked in a photography shop just as the first Canon Sure-Shots came out - we sold everything from Leica through off-brand stuff. Even had a full darkroom department. (Kids, ask your parents...)
True manual = mechanical shutter. The Canon AE (which stood for Automatic Exposure) series was excellent, but used a larger battery and wouldn't work if it went dead. They were auto-exposure (AE1 let you set the shutter speed manually, and the lens set the aperture). Lenses were great, and the were solid units. The predecessor to that was the FT series, which were tanks. I had one for a while and held onto it for a long time just for that reason, they were the RBW's of the SLR world, as were the Nikon FM (manual) models. The old Nikkormats (precursor to Nikon) were sturdy beasts as well, though you have to make sure you have the right lenses for them. I used mostly Olympus OM-1's, as they had fully mechanical shutters and were small but tough. Good lenses. Low profile. Simple +/- metering in the viewfinder. Minolta SRT (201?) series were bigger and bulkier, but worked really well. Circle/ring metering. Pentax K1000 was another in that same style. Basic. Solid. Used the "bayonet" Pentax lenses rather than the screw-on lenses of the Spotmatic (another good option if you can find the lenses). If you can't find factory lenses, the Vivitar Series 1 lenses from that era were good. - J On Thursday, May 20, 2021 at 11:11:29 AM UTC-7 Patrick Moore wrote: > My daughter has come to like film photography during her first > attempts using a high quality borrowed manual SLR. > > I'd like to get her an SLR, preferably manual, preferably with a > flash, of decent quality but not too expensive; and I have no idea > what "expensive" means here. > > She would also be happy with a point and shoot, but I think that if > affordable that a minimally decent manual with flash would be more > satisfying. > > I know many of you are photographers; what would you recommend, and > why? Manual or automatic? > > I might be in the market for a decent used camera for her 20th birthday. > > My posted photographs are really bad, I know that, and this despite > some care. She might be able to help me learn how to take better ones. > > -- > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > Patrick Moore > Alburquerque, Nuevo Mexico, Etats Unis d'Amerique, Orbis Terrarum > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/ed252f62-b745-4277-9077-d51235a04f0fn%40googlegroups.com.