Canon SLR

As with many young New Zealanders, my view on the world beyond our pacific isolation was formed on the images and articles presented in moth-balled National Geographic magazines. Generously saturated pictures of wildlife, political conflicts, and a variety intrepid explorations captured my imagination, inspiring me to seek out my own ‘Walter Mitty’ exploits. Every magazine had me captivated and as excited as I was to be emersed in the gritty and informative stories, I always gravitated toward the ‘you can buy this lifestyle’ advertisements. Sir Peter Blake’s moustache on a monohull brandishing his Omega Seamaster and Luis Mardens moustache diving for artefacts accompanied by his Rolex Sea-dweller. Canon and Nikons finest offerings were usually matched to a perfectly composed photo of the world’s largest, fastest and rarest animals.

Autofocus SLR bodies such as the Canon EOS-1 are potentially, arguably, maybe overlooked. When one thinks about a 35mm SLR, it is often something along the lines of the Pentax K1000 or the Nikon F3. Granted, I am also guilty of this, as manual focus SLRs are great, and also again, arguably one of the best ways to get into film photography in general, as they offer a hands-on approach to image making. Whilst these are great, there are other options when manual everything becomes tiresome and tedious… if that can ever happen.