Elan: in the nude.

Well, here goes. I was sitting around, looking at the front page, thinking "Where to start?". And what better place to start than with the background image... or rather, the subject matter of the background image: the Canon EOS Elan.

The Canon EOS Elan is the second film SLR I picked up. Well... actually it's tied for first, but it's the second one I used. Let me explain. The picture was taken with my first film SLR, which I'll talk about another time. It was several months after getting my digital SLR. I had gone through a few thousand shots on the digital and was itching to try some film, so I bid on a Canon 300v on ebay which also came with an "old broken SLR for parts or repair". Well, that old broken SLR was an Elan, and I chose repair... and I'm really glad I did. Turns out it was a really simple repair, requiring just a drill and a paper clip (keep in mind, my definition of "repair" has nothing to do with factory original restoration). On a side note, I suspect this is a common problem with this era of camera. You see, the dial on top has a little button that locks it in the off position. You have to press the button to turn the dial away from the off position. The part that holds it all together has these tiny little plastic posts which got sheared off at some point, so I just drilled out the places where the posts were with a tiny drill bit and looped a paper clip through and then tossed out the button and locking parts so the dial just turns anytime you like.

Anyways... if someone were looking to get in to a film SLR for playing around, and they already had a collection of EOS lenses, I'd probably recommend the Elan. The #1 reason for this is the built in auto-focus assist light: brilliant. I know people who spend over $200 to buy that ST-E2 just to use as a focus assist light, and here this old gem has one built in! This camera with a fast lens and a roll of high iso film is perfect for some warm, romantic shots in a candle lit restaurant. It doesn't blind everyone in the room and doesn't attract too much attention, but still lets you get a good, focused shot quickly.

And focusing on this body is fast (assuming your lens can keep up). How fast? Well, I just strapped on the cheapest lens I could find in my collection (a plastic mount Sigma 28-80mm macro) set it to 50mm (which puts the focusing aperture at f/4.5), set it at infinity focus and then turned off all the lights in the room. I pointed it at a table about 5 feet away which has a lamp, phone and some other dull items on it and hit the focus button. Maybe half second later (the ammount of time it took for the lens to get all the way back from infinity) it had locked on to the phone using only the built in focus assist light... not too shabby for a simple old SLR that someone was giving away.

Simplicity seems to be the name of the game with this camera. It doesn't have lots of buttons or functions that the average person doesn't need, but it does have enough to keep things interesting. It has one focus point (who needs 35 focus points when one does the job just fine), the usual lcd screen on top, two wheels for changing settings and a few buttons here and there... but they are simple. On my digital SLR, if I want to change the AF mode I have to press a button and turn a dial and then press the shutter button half way to return to regular shooting... on the Elan I just press the button once and it's done: simple.

And the best part... it's CHEAP! Hunt around and a $20 bill will probably get you one of these little beauties. Fast focusing, built in auto focus assist and simple control without sacrificing important features like exposure lock, flash exposure compensation, bracketing, multiple exposures, etc... What more could an aspiring film photographer ask for?

Well, I'll admit... it's not the prettiest SLR out there... in fact, it may be in the running for ulgiest auto focus 35mm film slr of all time. It's one of the early EOS film bodies, and it looks it. The built in flash is a boxy giant sleeping on top of the heavy, bulky body. And the battery to power this thing may just end up costing as much as the camera itself (though it is 3 years since I bought the battery and it is still going strong). And I won't say this camera gets the most use of my collection, but it does get its fair share. It's not not a fantastic performer all around, I wouldn't take it to a soccer game or on the ski slopes, but for low light shots it's still my first choice for 35mm film; When the 3200iso film comes out, so does this body. And for landscapes and the like it's as good as any other 35mm film camera I've tried.

AND, as if all that other stuff wasn't enough, it has an optional bar code reader accessory. So if you've been yearning for a camera that can set exposure settings using barcodes, the Elan is for you. For me, though, it's just an interesting little conversation piece in case the conversation actually gets to the point where a barcode reading film camera seems like interesting conversation... this hasn't yet happened, but it's good to know I'm covered.

So that's my take on the original EOS Elan. Hope you enjoyed it.