The Canon AE-1 is a manual focus 35mm SLR camera produced between 1976 to 1984 and is compatible with Canon's FD-mount lenses.
The AE-1 is a historically significant SLR, but not because of any major technological firsts, although it was the first microprocessor central processing unit equipped SLR. The AE-1 was designed from the ground up with five major units and twenty-five minor units. They were centrally controlled by a microcomputer. By incorporating electronics, the parts count could be reduced by around 300 and with the manufacturing of the camera also highly automated made it possible to produce a low-cost camera having high-end features. This made an SLR camera affordable to a larger group of people and is often reffered to as an amature level SLR, despite having many professional level features of the time. Backed by a major advertising campaign, the AE-1 sold five million units. |
