Having recently bought and then sold my very first love in 35mm cameras, the Olympus OM-1, I continued to think about those days in the 70s when my love for photography was both nascent and in some ways at its height.
After the OMs, my desires turned to the Canon AE-1, then the pinnacle (in my eyes) that was the A-1. It was released in 1978, and at 16 I was in love with it (and the subjects of some of the pictures in the pages of Amateur Photograper and Practical Photographer - but let’s sweep that under the carpet!).
EBay became the dangerous place of my absent-minded perusal last week. Then, of course, I found a 1 owner from new, mint example (A-1, not photographic magazine subject - we agreed to put them to one side if you recall). The result is that I now have it in my possession. I’m blown away by it - the OMs are beautiful, but this thing was so advanced for its time. I laughed out loud when I saw the shutter speed and aperture readouts in the viewfinder - perfect, but only seen 46 years ago depicted on a page.
Trying to resist buying film for it!