Using the Manual Exposure mode of your Canon cameras. In this issue, the focus is on using the manual exposure control of your Canon 35mm SLR cameras. For most beginners, piece of advice they usually get from veteran photographers is: "If you want to improve your standard of photography, always use a camera that lets you choose the aperture, shutter speeds as well as allows you to focus the lens manually. Don't go for electronics or AF 35mm SLR cameras." In a way, this advice is partly true. Having a multi-mode 35mm SLR camera, whether it is an AF or manual focus version, at one's disposal can stray the user's attention away from the process of picture-making. Using any of the AE shooting modes available of an automatic SLR camera can guarantee excellent pictures but the beginners may not be able to learn the right techniques required to create the shots. Most discontinued 35mm SLR cameras, whether they are mechanical or fully-electronic models, have metered manual or manual override for users who wish to have complete control over their exposure settings. Most of Canon's discontinued A-series and T-series 35mm SLR cameras like the Canon A-1, AE-1 Program, T70 and T90 have a manual overide feature in addition to the various AE shooting modes. A manual override is not a full-fledged exposure mode since it lacks the essential metered manual capability. Since most of Canon's 35mm SLR cameras have Shutter-priority AE, users are able to know which shutter speed they are selecting in the manual override mode without taking their eyes off the viewfinder but the cameras will not display the aperture numbers that have been selected manually by them. The last of Canon's manual focus camera that featured metered manual exposure capability was the New F-1 professional model, discontinued in mid-1992. What is metered manual? Metered manual is where you can set your shutter speed and aperture on the camera without removing your eye from the viewfinder. You can also see how many stops between your selected aperture/shutter speed combinations to the camera's recommended values. Canon's New F-1 pro camera The shutter speed dial of the New F-1 The New F-1 was essentially a manual exposure camera with add-on accessories to enable AE exposure controls such as Shutter-priority AE and Aperture-priority AE. The Aperture-priority AE mode is actually built-in but you need the optional AE Finder FN viewfinder in order to know what shutter speed the camera has set in response to the aperture you have selected.   << Back to Main . 1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 5 . 6 . 7 . 8 .