Use a Canon T90
The Canon T90 is a professional film SLR camera that can, in the digital era, be picked up for less than some people would pay for a camera strap. As the most advanced manual-focus camera ever made, someone who acquires one of these might find it a little intimidating. If that's you, and you don't feel like ploughing through 126 pages of manual, this guide will explain how to use one of these legendary cameras.
Steps
Preparation
- Check the battery, if you have any fitted.
- Open up the side panel, then press and hold the battery check button (indicated). Don't hit the manual film rewind button, which is right beneath it.
- Check the top LCD. It'll be reading "BC". It'll also indicate up to three bars at the bottom (each of them made out of three little bars). If you see two or three, then you're safe. If you see one, you might be good for a roll of film, but it's a good idea to carry some spares with you. If you see none, then you should replace your batteries as soon as possible (though the camera will function perfectly right up until they're totally drained).
- Replace the batteries if needs be.
- Unlatch the battery tray. The latch is on the right hand side of the camera (if you're looking from the back). Flip out the lever then turn the latch anti-clockwise.
- Remove the battery tray. The battery tray is a little flimsy, so don't yank it out.
- Fit the batteries into the battery tray. You'll need four AA batteries for this, either carbon-zinc batteries (cheap "heavy duty" ones), alkaline batteries, or Ni-Cds batteries. Canon didn't explicitly mention using Ni-Mh batteries, so do this at your own risk. Make sure you insert them with the + and - terminals of the batteries pointing in the correct direction, as the battery tray indicates.
- Reinsert the battery tray. You may find that right at the end, you have to apply a little bit of pressure, holding the battery tray all the way in so that you can latch it. This is normal. Turn the latch clockwise to lock the battery tray in place.
- Fit the lens. There are two types of Canon FD lenses, which fit in slightly different ways. Note that in the pictures the red dots are not lined up perfectly as the description suggests they should be; this was to stop the lens plopping off while the picture was being taken, sorry.
- Lenses without chrome locking rings: These are sometimes called "New FD" or "FD-n" lenses. Line up the red dot on the lens with the red dot on the camera body. If you're looking at it from the front, grip the aperture ring and turn the lens clockwise until it locks into place (you'll feel, or perhaps hear, a distinct click when it's locked).
- Lenses with chrome locking rings: Line up the red dot on the locking ring with the red dot on the camera body. Gently rotate the locking ring until it's tight enough. These lenses never really lock into place like the New FD lenses (and lenses from almost every other SLR camera system) do. Use your judgment as to what is tight enough, but be careful not to over-tighten it.
- Set the lens' aperture ring to "A". In aperture-priority mode, the aperture is set from the camera, not the aperture ring. You will find that if it's not already on "A", you'll have to push a button in order to turn it to the "A" position.
- Make sure the stopped-down metering switch isn't pressed. You don't care what this does, but it's the switch on the right-hand-side (looking from the front) of the lens mount on the camera. If this is pushed in as shown in the picture, push it towards the lens, then release it. (The stopped-down-metering switch does have its uses, in particular for using some non-Canon-FD lenses on the T90, but if you're using Canon FD lenses, you won't need to care about it. This is the primary cause of confusing "EEEE EEE" errors.)
- Turn on the viewfinder display. Open the flap on the side again and look at the switch right at the top, marked "FINDER". Turn this to the central position, i.e. the solid circle. This turns on some critical readings in the viewfinder, so you want to leave this on if you're not hopelessly low on battery.
- Load the film. This is mostly automatic. All you need to do is this:
- Turn on the camera. Put the power switch into the "A" position, as indicated in the picture.
- Open the back of the camera. The buttons to do this are on the right hand side of the camera (if you're looking at it from the back). Hold down the button marked "1" in the picture, while pushing the switch marked "2" downwards. The back will pop open.
- Drop a film cassette into the chamber on the left. There's only one way that it will fit in, so don't lose sleep over this.
- Be very careful not to touch the shutter blades. These are very precise and delicate components. Do not touch them, ever.
- Pull out the film leader. Extend it so that the edge of the film leader is at the orange index mark, as shown in the picture. Make sure that the perforations on the film line up with the sprockets just to the left of the take-up spool.
- Close the back of the camera. The T90 will load the film automatically and set the correct ISO (film speed).
Shooting
- Familiarise yourself with the three basic controls. Two of these we'll be referring to by name later, so learn them now:
- The power switch, which isn't actually a power switch (the camera is always on). This is the switch with two positions, L and A (for "Locked" and "Auto", or "off" and "on" to the rest of us, respectively). If you're worried about the camera merrily shooting its way through a roll of film while it's stored (or you hitting the shutter by accident), then keep this at "L" while you're not using it.
- The shutter button. This makes it go "click".
- The control dial. This is the big dial just behind the shutter button.
- Pick a drive mode. Open the flap on the right of the camera. At the bottom, you'll notice a switch with two positions, S-C and a clock icon. We'll refer to this as the "drive mode switch", and confuse you by referring to the big yellow button in the centre as the "drive mode button". Here are your shooting options:
- " mode.]] Continuous, high speed mode. This will make the T90 continue shooting after the film has wound on from the next frame for as long as you hold down the shutter button, at four and a half frames per second. You might want to use this in low light at shutter speeds that are too slow to get sharp hand-held shots 100 percent of the time (shoot several, pick the sharpest), or just because it sounds awesome. Be careful, because this will burn through a 36-exposure film in about eight seconds.
To get into this drive mode, turn the drive mode switch to the S-C position, then press the drive mode button in the centre until an arrow appears next to the H letter on the left hand side of the top LCD. - Continuous, low speed mode. This is like the above, but advances at a mere two frames per second. To get this mode, turn the drive mode switch to the S-C position, then press the drive mode button until an arrow appears next to the L on the top LCD.
- Single-shot mode. This will take a single shot for each press of the shutter button, no matter how long you hold it down (the film is still automatically advanced). This might be useful if you're shooting stills and are paranoid about wasting film. To use this, turn the drive mode switch to the S-C position until an arrow appears next to "SINGLE" on the top LCD.
- Self-timer. This is most useful for shooting from a tripod when you're making long exposures; having a delay after you push the shutter means any vibration you caused while doing so will have dissipated. To turn on the self timer, turn the drive mode switch to the clock icon, then press the drive mode button to choose either a 2 or 10 second timer delay (an arrow will appear next to 2 and 10 on the top LCD as you switch between them).
- " mode.]] Continuous, high speed mode. This will make the T90 continue shooting after the film has wound on from the next frame for as long as you hold down the shutter button, at four and a half frames per second. You might want to use this in low light at shutter speeds that are too slow to get sharp hand-held shots 100 percent of the time (shoot several, pick the sharpest), or just because it sounds awesome. Be careful, because this will burn through a 36-exposure film in about eight seconds.
- Get outside. Looking at beautiful photos is one thing, and learning how to make them is another. But if you're going to take some of your own, you need to get up, get your stuff packed and go outside. And if you're going to do this, you need to avoid some common attitudes and pitfalls which keep people indoors looking at photographs -- or, worse, talking about making photographs -- rather than taking them. Discard attitudes such as not trusting your own ability to take great shots, or thinking that all the good photos have already being taken; your perspective is unique and is definitely worth being represented in photos.
- Pick a shooting mode. An understanding of camera exposure might be helpful here; see How to Understand Camera Exposure. The T90 will set either aperture, shutter speed, or both for you automatically. Which ones they will set, depends on the mode you have it in. So, hold down the "Mode" button while turning the main control dial. You'll see that different things, like "Tv, Av, Program", and so on appear in the top LCD. Here are the ones that you care about:
- P, for program automatic. This will set both aperture and shutter speed for you, and will guess a combination that works for most people most of the time. Once you're in P mode, turning the command dial will shift between different aperture or shutter speed combinations. This is called program shift. Note that this is not the same as exposure compensation (detailed below), in which a shot is deliberately over- or under-exposed. It simply picks different combinations (for example, 1/30 at f/4, or 1/125 at f/2, rather than the default 1/60 at f/2.8), keeping the exposure the same. You can shift up to two stops in each direction.
(You will have noticed a "P" mode, but this isn't the same as "Program". "Program" doesn't allow you to shift between combinations of aperture and shutter speeds.) - Av, meaning aperture-priority, meaning that you turn the main control dial to select an aperture and the camera automatically chooses a shutter speed to match it (again, see How to Understand Camera Exposure if you're unsure what any of this means). Turning the control dial to the left will select a larger aperture (smaller f/number, meaning less depth of field and faster shutter speeds) and turning it to the right will select a smaller aperture (meaning the inverse).
See also How to Use Your Camera's Aperture Priority Mode, and How to Choose a Lens Aperture (F Stop). - Tv, meaning shutter-priority, meaning that you pick a shutter speed and the camera automatically sets an aperture for you. This might be useful if you want to force a fast shutter speed to freeze motion (or avoid camera shake), or if you want a slow one to blur motion (like those awesome blurred water shots you see). Once you're in Tv mode, turning the control dial to the right will select a faster shutter speed, and turning it to the right will select a slower one.
- P, for program automatic. This will set both aperture and shutter speed for you, and will guess a combination that works for most people most of the time. Once you're in P mode, turning the command dial will shift between different aperture or shutter speed combinations. This is called program shift. Note that this is not the same as exposure compensation (detailed below), in which a shot is deliberately over- or under-exposed. It simply picks different combinations (for example, 1/30 at f/4, or 1/125 at f/2, rather than the default 1/60 at f/2.8), keeping the exposure the same. You can shift up to two stops in each direction.
- Set exposure compensation if you need it. The T90's meter is a relatively dumb, centre-weighted one (meaning that it pays more attention to light at the centre of the frame than it does to light sources on the periphery). It's not smart enough to know that bright subjects should be kept bright, nor that things meant to be dark should be kept that way. This is where exposure compensation comes in; it forces the camera to use a longer or shorter shutter speed (in P and Av modes), or a larger or smaller aperture (in Tv mode), than it would do normally, forcing it to over- or under-expose.
To set exposure compensation, hold down the exposure compensation button (marked "EXP. COMP.") and turn the main control wheel at the same time. Each click on the control wheel is one third of a stop, i.e. forcing a shutter speed one third longer than it'd choose by itself. Turn the dial towards the right to over-expose, and towards the left to under-expose. You'll notice that the exposure compensation readout on the top LCD changes, as indicated in the picture. It reads "2", towards the right of the centre, which indicates twice the normal exposure, or one stop.
Some examples of times you'll need exposure compensation:- Strongly back-lit subjects. You may want to add two stops of overexposure (so that the readout on the top LCD goes all the way over to the right, at the "4" position).
- Snow. The T90 is not smart enough to know that snow is snow and that it should be kept bright, so it'll attempt to expose it to turn it grey. You might want to add anywhere from two thirds stop to a whole stop or more.
- Bright sunsets. You'll lose some of the great details in the sky if you don't underexpose a little. Try underexposing by two thirds of a stop if you're shooting a slide film. This will also ensure that shadows stay dark, as they should be.
- , not a T90.)]] Film reciprocity. Many films run into problems when exposure times get very long; they require additional exposure as shutter times increase. This is called "reciprocity failure". The deceased Kodachrome, for example, required overexposure for speeds as short as a tenth of a second. Most films are not this bad, but still require overexposure at longer speeds. Find a datasheet for your film; it'll tell you how much extra exposure you require.
- Press the shutter button down very gently and look through your viewfinder. These are the following things you care about in your viewfinder:
- Shutter speed. This is the shutter speed you have either selected (in Tv mode), or that the camera has chosen for you (in P and Av modes). This is at the bottom of the viewfinder, left-to-middle.
- Aperture. This is the pair of red digits at the bottom of the viewfinder, just left of the centre. This tells you either what aperture you have set (in Av mode), or what aperture the camera has selected for you (in P and TV modes).
- How many shots you have used. This is the indicator on the right hand side of the viewfinder.
- The split-image. You will see three circles in the middle of your viewfinder. The inner one of these is a split-image rangefinder, a focusing aid that we will explain later.
- The microprism ring. The second-to-inner of the circles mentioned above is another focusing aid, which we will explain later, too.
- Other things. If you see a "+/-" in your viewfinder, this indicates that you have exposure compensation set. If you see "M" in your viewfinder, this means you've ignored step 4 under "Preparation" above.
- Focus. Turn the focus ring on your lens. You have two focusing aids, as mentioned above. The split-image in the rangefinder will make vertical lines appear as being split in half; when the image in your viewfinder is in focus, vertical lines will be joined.
The other focusing aid you have is your microprism ring. When subjects are out of focus, the area of the image within the microprism ring will shimmer; when it's in focus, it will not. - Take your picture. Push the shutter button down all the way. The shutter will click and you can move on to the next beautiful thing to photograph.
- Keep shooting until you've finished your film. Once you do, the film will automatically rewind itself.
- Open the back of the camera and pop the film cassette out of the film chamber. Get your pictures developed, and don't forget to show them off to the world!
Tips
- The T90 has an excellent feature called "safety shift". This means that if you've selected an aperture in Av (aperture-priority) mode that requires a faster or slower shutter speed than the T90 is capable of to get a correct exposure, it will automatically choose a larger or smaller aperture for you. Likewise, in Tv mode, if you select a shutter speed that requires a larger or smaller aperture than your lens has, it will override your choice of shutter speed and pick one that is faster or slower than the one you have selected.
To turn on your safety shift, hold down the two buttons marked "SAFETY SHIFT" (as indicated in the picture) at the same time, and hold them down until "SS" appears in your top LCD. To turn it off, do exactly the same thing until the "SS" disappears. - The T90 is a 25 year old camera; if something doesn't work as expected, and you're sure you followed the steps correctly, take your camera to any camera repair specialist that is able to service film cameras.
Related Articles
Sources and Citations
- See sample pictures at Dr. Ching-Kuang Shene's page on exposure compensation, http://www.cs.mtu.edu/~shene/DigiCam/User-Guide/990/EXPOSURE/EV-compensation.html.
