The Canon A1 Was Ahead of Its Time

The internet acts like Canon made exactly one camera in the 70s and 80s: the AE-1. It is in every YouTube film-photography starter pack. Every TikTok kid’s first roll of Portra.

Meanwhile the Canon A-1 sits at the kids table at Thanksgiving. “The forgotten SLR.”

I will confess: I helped. I got an AE-1 for my 1983 graduation, then bought an A-1 mostly because the black body looked cool. The pros all had Nikons around their necks anyway, or Canon’s bigger F-1.

But the A-1 did more than people remember. Program mode, which was pretty insane for its time. A viewfinder with little red digital meter readouts that I still love, 43 years later.

I own two of them. Two.

So what is your forgotten SLR? The one that deserved better? Tell me in the comments. “Do I need to go get myself another glass of Metamucil?”