Notes

This was my first “Big Boy” camera (not this exact piece). In high school, I shot cameras provided to me by my school for the newspaper and yearbook. I eventually bought my very own SLR, the Canon T50. I couldn’t afford its more capable big brother, the Canon T70.

Historical Context

Introduced in March 1983, the Canon T50 was a radical departure from the traditional mechanical cameras of the 1970s. It was the first of Canon’s “T-series,” designed specifically to combat a slump in SLR sales by taking the simplicity of a compact point-and-shoot and putting it into a fully capable SLR body.

Canon engineered the T50 to be completely unintimidating for beginners. Visually, it lacked the traditional clutter of knobs and dials found on earlier cameras like the AE-1. Instead, it offered a stark, minimalist top plate moulded from matte-black polycarbonate.

The camera was designed to be used almost exclusively in Program Auto (P) mode. You simply set your FD lens to “A,” focused, and pressed the shutter. The T50’s internal light meter and microcomputer handled the rest, automatically selecting both the aperture and the shutter speed.

It was also heavily motorized. It featured a built-in power winder capable of shooting at 1.4 frames per second—a feature that made it pleasantly loud and mechanical in operation. To power this motor and the electronic systems, the T50 relies on two standard AA batteries housed in the handgrip (a grip whose plastic battery doors are notoriously fragile and frequently require replacement today).