I recently bought a Canon Sure Shot point-and-shoot from a seller on Facebook Marketplace. He advertised it for $25 (complete with a carrying case), but admitted he didn’t know if it worked or not. When I showed up to inspect it, it wouldn’t power on…even when I put in fresh batteries. “Since it doesn’t turn on, would you take $10?” He agreed. I brought the camera home and wondered if I’d just thrown away that $10. I used a pencil eraser to “scrub” the contact points in the battery chamber, then put in new batteries. It sprang to life! Time spent “reparing” the camera? 30 seconds.

I have a sentimental attachment to this specific camera model. When I was on Yearbook and Newspaper staff in high school, our instructor had several of these he’d loan out to student photographers. I mostly used Canon SLRs back then, but would occasionally grab one of these point-and-shoot cameras when I wanted to keep things simple.

The Canon Sure Shot AF 35 M was introduced in 1979. It was Canon’s first auto-focus camera. It has a 38mm f/2.8 lens and a pop-up flash. It also features auto-advance and auto-rewind. A quick check on eBay at the time of this writing shows they’re plentiful and selling for between $70 and $100. In fact, just two days ago someone paid $99.99 + $30.00 shipping for the exact camera and case I bought for $10. **insert shrugging emoji here**

I was eager to test my newly aquired Sure Shot. A ten frame roll of film as discussed in a previous post would be perfect for the job. As these photos will demonstrate, I’m obsessed with I really enjoy taking photos of people engaging in everyday life; shopping at Costco, pumping gas, taking a walk in the neighborhood, etc. And carrying around a simple point-and-shoot lends itself perfectly for grabbing these shots.

I’m obsessed with taking photos of people engaging in everyday life.

These photos were taken with Arista EDU Ultra 100 and developed in Diafine. Easy-peasy. The feel and quality of photos such a simple camera can produce is pretty incredible.