Glass Bodies a variant-level encyclopedia of vintage lenses and cameras by iwillpat

Canon A-1

Canon · Canon FD mount · 24×36mm on 35mm film, hinged back · 1978

single source, unconfirmed

Also known as: Canon A1 · A-1 · Canon A-1 black · キヤノンA-1 · キャノンA-1 · キヤノン A1

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
A-1 Canon FD 1978–1985 — —
  1. No production total has been published for the A-1 by Canon or by anyone this project could reach. Canon's own history says only that it sold to junior and senior high school students as well as to camera enthusiasts.
  2. The end of production is disputed: Wikipedia, Fstoppers and The Noisy Shutter say 1985; mir.com.my says the camera was retired in 1982 and replaced by the T series, which is hard to square with the T70 not arriving until 1984. 1985 is carried here.
  3. The US list price of $625 with the 50mm f/1.4 rests on Wikipedia alone and is uncited there; Mike Eckman gives $611 and $680 for the f/1.8 and f/1.4 kits, and Vintage Camera Digest gives $419.95 with no lens named. The single_source flag is for this price. The yen prices are Canon's own.
  4. The squeal. A well-used A-1 (and AE-1) makes a squeal, sometimes called the Canon cough or the Canon squeak, when the mirror returns. camera-wiki attributes it to the mirror braking mechanism needing re-lubrication; Mike Eckman had his squealing body cleaned and lubricated by a technician and calls the cause inadequate lubrication rather than a design fault; Wikipedia's AE-1 article calls it mirror linkage wear; a commenter at Fstoppers connects it to eventual shutter-timing failure. Every one of these sources agrees it is a service item, and none says it stops the camera taking pictures. A body that has been serviced and is silent is worth the premium; a squealing one is a working camera that needs a CLA.
  5. Weight is published three ways: 620 g by Canon, Wikipedia and analog.cafe; 609 g with battery by The Noisy Shutter; 650 g body only by Mike Eckman, weighed. Canon's is used.
  6. Canon's museum lists a 4G-13 mercury cell or a 4LR44 alkaline; the 4LR44, PX28 and 4SR44 are the same 6V package and any of them fits.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • The only all-black A-series body, with A-1 engraved on the front of the prism housing
  • Digits rather than a needle in the finder: a red LED readout of both shutter speed and aperture, unique in the A series
  • Tv/Av selector beside the AT dial where an AE-1 has a plain shutter-speed dial
  • Nothing works without the 6V cell: no mechanical speed, no battery-free B

A-1:

  • Black only: no chrome A-1 was ever sold
  • One AT dial on the right of the top plate carrying both shutter speeds (30s to 1/1000) and apertures, switched between Tv and Av by a selector; the mode is the position of that selector, not a separate dial (Mike Eckman describes the arrangement)
  • Red seven-segment LED readout along the bottom of the finder, showing shutter speed and aperture as digits, with an eyepiece shutter and a switch to turn the display off
  • Film speed and exposure compensation on one dial around the rewind crank, compensation to two stops each way, and film speeds from ISO 6 to 12800
  • Removable action grip on the front covering the battery door; the grip comes off to fit Motor Drive MA

Specifications

Format
24×36mm on 35mm film, hinged back
Finder
Fixed eye-level pentaprism with a split-image rangefinder and microprism collar on the standard screen. Focusing screens are interchangeable, but Canon specified that a service technician change them, not the owner; Canon Classics and Vintage Camera Digest count six screens, Mike Eckman seven. · 0.83× magnification · 95% coverage · no rangefinder image
Shutter
four-axis horizontal-travel focal plane, cloth curtains, electronically controlled; stepless on automatic · 30s to 1/1000 in whole stops, plus B; stepless from 30s to 1/1000 in the AE modes · flash sync X at 1/60, hot shoe with automatic-switching dedicated contacts and a PC socket · self-timer
Film advance
single-stroke lever; Power Winder A, Power Winder A2 or Motor Drive MA
Back
hinged; interchangeable with Data Back A
Meter
TTL full-aperture centre-weighted averaging, silicon photocell, EV -2 to 18 at ISO 100 with an f/1.4 lens. Five AE modes: shutter-priority, aperture-priority, program, stopped-down AE with FL and non-coupled lenses, and Speedlite AE with the dedicated flashes; plus manual. One 4LR44 6V alkaline (or the original 4G-13 mercury) cell runs everything.
Motor drive
Motor Drive MA, Power Winder A, Power Winder A2 — Motor Drive MA runs to 5 frames a second on the A-1 (Canon Camera Museum, Wikipedia). The action grip must come off to fit it.
Weight
620 g
Dimensions
141 × 92 × 48 (W × H × D), body only, Canon's figure mm
Country
Japan
Original price
83,000 yen body only, 114,000 yen with the FD 50mm f/1.4 SSC, April 1978 (Canon Camera Museum). US list price $625 with the 50mm f/1.4 (Wikipedia, uncited); Mike Eckman gives $611 with the f/1.8 and $680 with the f/1.4. (today ¥138,000)
Accessories
Motor Drive MA (5 fps) · Power Winder A and A2 · Data Back A · Speedlite 155A and 199A (dedicated AE flash) · Action grip (removable, covers the battery door)

Canon gives 93.4 per cent vertical and 95.3 per cent horizontal coverage.

Where sources disagree

Last
  • 1985 (Wikipedia; Fstoppers; The Noisy Shutter)
  • 1982 (mir.com.my: 'only officially retired from service and replaced with similarly successful T-series models in 1982')

Better supported: 1985

Three accounts against one, and the one contradicts the T-series dates. Canon's museum gives no end date.

Weight (grams)
  • 620 g (Canon Camera Museum; Wikipedia; analog.cafe)
  • 609 g with battery (The Noisy Shutter)
  • 650 g body only (Mike Eckman, weighed)

Better supported: 620 g

Notes (number of focusing screens)
  • six (Canon Classics; Vintage Camera Digest)
  • seven (Mike Eckman)

Canon's museum page does not give a count.

What reviewers say

History

The A-1 went on sale in April 1978 at 83,000 yen for the body, two years after the AE-1 had shown Canon that a microprocessor could sell a camera. Where the AE-1 had one automatic mode, the A-1 had five: shutter-priority, aperture-priority, program, stopped-down AE for lenses without the FD coupling, and Speedlite AE with the dedicated flashes, plus manual. Canon’s museum claims the program mode as the first fully automatic one on an SLR, and nobody contests it. The camera was the top of the A series and stayed there; the AE-1 Program of 1981 borrowed its program mode and its grip, but not its aperture-priority mode or its digital finder.

The finder is the thing to look at first. In place of a needle there is a row of red seven-segment digits along the bottom of the screen, reading out both shutter speed and aperture, the first such display on a Canon SLR and the reason the camera was sold as all-digital control. On the top plate the shutter-speed and aperture scales share one AT dial, and a small selector switches it between Tv and Av. The position of that selector is the exposure mode. Mike Eckman finds the arrangement busy and the dial cramped, and he is not alone; the controls take a manual to learn and reward the learning.

Nothing on the A-1 changed over its run that a buyer can use to date one. Canon sold it in black only, as it did no other A-series camera, and the standard lens moved from the FD 50mm f/1.4 SSC and 55mm f/1.2 SSC of the launch to the New FD lenses of 1979 without the body being altered. The one thing Canon did revise was the standard focusing screen, later replaced by the brighter Laser Matte type, and screens were meant to be changed by a technician rather than the owner. Wikipedia and two reviewers have production ending in 1985; mir.com.my says 1982, which does not fit the T70 arriving in 1984.

What to check is the noise. A well-used A-1 squeals as the mirror comes back, a sound known as the Canon squeal or the Canon cough and shared with the AE-1. camera-wiki puts it down to the mirror braking mechanism needing lubrication; Eckman sent his to a technician for a clean and lube and got a silent camera back, and calls it a maintenance item rather than a design fault. Wikipedia’s AE-1 article calls it mirror linkage wear. Either way it does not stop the camera working, and a serviced, silent body is the one to pay more for. Beyond that: the camera does nothing without its 6V cell, not even B; the battery door sits under a removable grip that is easily lost and easily broken; and the light seals are of the age.

Canon has published no production total, no end date, and no export price. Its yen prices are the only ones from the maker. The $625 US list price with the 50mm f/1.4 comes from Wikipedia without a citation, and two other figures circulate; it is flagged here as a single-source claim. The weight is 620 g by Canon’s count, 650 g by Eckman’s scales.

Expand Collapse

This history is AI-written, from the sources listed at the foot of the page. Where the record is silent it says so rather than filling the gap — but no human wrote these sentences.

Photographs

Canon A-1
Canon A-1 with the FD 50mm f/1.8 — Benjamin.nagel, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Canon A-1
Canon A-1 — Johannes Maximilian, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Canon A-1
The A-1 finder: shutter speed and aperture as red digits — Johannes Maximilian, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $190 across 61 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-18 (middle half $150–$270). First day tracked.

Asking prices from the listings scanned, not sales; junk-flagged rows and auction lots excluded; other currencies are not converted.

Show 139 more listings

Buying from Yahoo! Auctions outside Japan. It is a domestic marketplace: sellers ship within Japan, and most will not register an overseas buyer. A proxy service bids on your behalf, receives the item and forwards it, for a fee and a wait. Buyee, Jauce and ZenMarket each accept a Yahoo auction number directly. Listed alphabetically for information — none is recommended over another, and none of these is an affiliate link.

Listings updated 2026-09-18. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Related: Canon AE-1 · Canon AE-1 Program · Canon AL-1 · Canon AT-1 · Canon EF · Canon New F-1 · Canon T70 · Canon T90

Lenses for this body: FD 100mm f/2 · FD 135mm f/2 · FD 200mm f/2.8 · FD 24mm f/1.4 Aspherical / L · FD 28mm f/2 · FD 300mm f/2.8 Fluorite / L · FD 50mm f/1.2 / f/1.2 L · FD 50mm f/1.4 · FD 50mm f/1.8 · FD 55mm f/1.2 · FD 85mm f/1.2 Aspherical / L · FD 85mm f/1.8

Sources (14)

Every page here is assembled from public sources, and the gaps are real ones. If you own this camera, know a serial number I'm missing, or can see where I have it wrong, tell me — corrections, serials and sample photos are all worth having.