The Canon T50 is an ugly, extremely simple SLR camera with only manual focus but still a lot of fun to use, with the potential to produce great photos if used in the right way. It may be that you have one kicking somewhere in a closet, or you know someone who has one, or you can easily buy one on eBay for little money. Find one, dust it off, read this guide and get out of the house, point and shoot.
Steps
Method 1 of 4: Basic Settings
Step 1. Replace the batteries
Even if your camera already has batteries, replace them with new ones, as you don't want to find yourself running out of batteries just as you shoot.
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Image Push the release to open the battery compartment door. Unlock the battery compartment door, and open it. Do this gently as these mechanisms are incredibly fragile and very easy to break. Remove the old batteries.
- Check the ends of the battery case for signs of corrosion if you just bought the camera. If they are covered with a white residue, spray them with some electrical contact cleaner and scrape the residue carefully using a sharp tool.
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Image Put two AA batteries. Never use rechargeable batteries, Canon warns against using such batteries (this means that either the charge is inadequate, or the camera will explode). If you abandon disposable batteries, you will be doing your part to destroy the environment ("high performance", zinc-carbon or alkaline).
- Close the battery compartment door; again, try to be as gentle as possible, to avoid breaking it.
Step 2. Be paranoid, and always check the batteries, even if they are new
It is good to get in the habit of doing this regularly. Turn the main knob to "B. C" (which stands for "Battery Check"); if the camera beeps, the batteries are still charged.
Step 3. Mount the lens
The lens can be one of two Canon FD types, which mount in slightly different ways:
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Image Old school FD lenses have a chrome ring that needs to be tightened to keep the lens in place. Lenses with chrome locking rings, any lens manufactured before 1979: Line up the red dots on the lens and camera body, then rotate the chrome locking ring clockwise (when looking at the camera from the front), until it is reasonably tight.
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Image The "new FD lenses", like this 28mm f / 2.8, mount just like all bayonet lenses. THE new FD objectives - These do not have a closure ring. Again, line up the two red points. Then, rotate the lens until you hear a click, just like the bayonet lenses fitted to all other cameras.
Step 4. Make sure the aperture ring is set to "A"
Press the button to the right of the "A" to allow it to rotate until the "A" is just below the orange vertical line. Moving the dial to a setting other than "A" will lock the shutter speed to 1 / 60th of a second. This setting is only useful when shooting with flash in manual mode (if you need to illuminate your subject in direct light only, use Canon's Speedlite 244T, which works great in "A" mode) or in the studio with strobe lights. For any other case, keep it on "A".
Certainly, for photography fanatics, this appears to be a completely manual, very crude, and limiting mode.
Method 2 of 4: Load the film
Step 1. Open the back of the camera
You can do this by lifting the film rewind knob. You may encounter some resistance, so don't be too afraid to use some force.
Step 2. Insert the roll into the appropriate slot
Step 3. Pull out the film, until the end of the film reaches the red mark on the right side, near the film wrapping chamber
(In the photo, it may appear that the end of the film does not reach the red mark; this is because the film is not stretched.)
Step 4. Push the rewind knob down to its normal position
You may have to crank the crank a little back or forth until the film clicks into place.
Step 5. Close the back of the machine
Step 6. Set the film sensitivity on the ISO / ASA dial
Press the silver button to unlock the dial, then hold it down while turning the dial until the line is aligned with the film speed.
Step 7. Advance the film to frame number 1
Make sure the main dial is set to PROGRAM and press the shutter button; the motor will advance the film (if this does not happen, then you have problems). Press it a couple more times until the arrow in the frame counter points to number 1.
Method 3 of 4: Snap
Step 1. Get out of the house
Go out whenever the light is good (this does not necessarily mean that you have to go out with the midday sun; in the early morning and late afternoon you will find the best conditions).
Step 2. Turn the main knob to PROGRAM
This is the camera's only exposure mode, which is fully automatic. You will only have to rotate it to L to unlock the shutter while it is stored in its position to prevent accidental shots; keep it hanging around your neck and you won't have any problems
Step 3. Look for things to photograph
This point is developed in more detail in another article.
Step 4. Look through the viewfinder and focus on whatever subject you want
Don't worry that this is a manual focus camera; The T50's viewfinder is so large and bright that you have to make an effort to get a picture out of focus. You also have two other aids that allow you to focus correctly. One of them is the broken image, in correspondence with the circle that you find right in the middle of the viewfinder, which breaks the image inside it into two parts, which will be aligned if the image is in focus.
The second (more useful) is a microprism ring that you can see around the circle with the broken image. These microprisms will make the blur much more noticeable; when the subject is out of focus, this area of the viewfinder flickers and shows very noticeable grid pattern. Rotate the focus ring until you see the image no longer broken, or until the portion of the subject that is in the microprism area is clearly in focus.
Step 5. Gently press the shutter button halfway
This will cause the camera to fire and you will see a small green P appear.
Step 6. Check the green P
It will give you some useful information:
- A steady, non-flashing P - green means you can shoot! The camera is happy, and ready to shoot.
- A slow blinking P: If it blinks about twice per second, it is warning you that the photo may be shaking due to camera shake (this can happen if the shutter speed is 1/30 or slower). Use a tripod or lean against a solid surface. If you happen to find yourself in this condition too often, you may want to consider using more sensitive films.
- A rapidly flashing P: You have no hope; either you're trying to shoot below the T50's exposure meter operating range, or you need a slower shutter speed of two seconds. I'm sorry, but the T50 simply can't shoot in excessively low light conditions.
Step 7. Press the shutter button all the way down to take the picture
The noise of the camera's film advance motor means that it will automatically advance the film to the next frame. If you hold down the shutter button, the camera will take a second photo less than a second after the first. This might be a good idea in the case of the slow flashing P (since taking a second photo increases the chances that at least one of the shots will not be moved by camera shake), otherwise you are just wasting film.
Step 8. Keep walking around and taking pictures until the film runs out
The camera will beep loud enough to signal that the film has run out.
Method 4 of 4: Rewind the film
Step 1. Press the film rewind button located at the bottom of the camera
Step 2. Lift the rewind handle and rotate it clockwise
Keep spinning it. You will feel that the crank offers some resistance for some time, then you will feel that the resistance suddenly ceases when the film is released. After this happens, take a few more turns.
Step 3. Lift the rewind handle to open the back of the camera
Then, take out the film.
Step 4. Develop the film and scan the photos (don't bother scanning yourself)
Show results to everyone. Thanks to its compatibility with some extraordinarily cheap lenses with great optics, the results you can get with this camera will be as good as those you get with a more complex and expensive camera like the Canon A-1, or even professional cameras, like the F -1. The T50's lack of manual settings is very popular with experienced photographers, even if in some ways they hate it; it forces the photographer to worry exclusively about the composition of the image.
Advice
- Try to avoid using pushed telephoto lenses with this camera. The T50's automatism is bleached towards lenses of medium-low focal length (50mm or less).
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Image It is possible to force the exposure, obtaining overexposed or underexposed shots by rotating the ring of the ASA, as in this photo. Although the T50 has no specific mechanism for exposure compensation, you can use the ASA dial to force the camera to underexpose or overexpose. In our example, in the photo on the right, taken with 50 ASA film (Fuji Velvia), the camera took the photo right in the sun; The ASA dial has been raised to 25 to achieve one stop overexposure to allow adequate exposure to puddles and keep the sky bright.
