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

Canon AL-1

Canon · Canon FD mount · 24×36mm on 35mm film, hinged back · 1982

single source, unconfirmed

Also known as: AL-1 · AL1 · AL-1 QF · AL-1 Quick Focus · Canon AL-1 Quick Focus · キヤノンAL-1 · キャノンAL-1

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
AL-1 Quick Focus Canon FD 1982 — —
  1. No production total and no end date have been published. Mike Eckman calls production extremely limited next to the AE-1 and AE-1 Program without giving a figure, and every source stops at the 1982 launch. years.last is therefore absent.
  2. camera-wiki says the camera was marketed in 1984 as an official product of the Los Angeles Olympic Games. That appears in no other source reached here and is the claim behind the single_source flag.
  3. The battery door. The two AAA cells sit in the front grip behind a door whose plastic hinge, about a millimetre thick, has to hold the cells against their spring. Mike Eckman calls it among the worst battery compartments on any camera and reckons more than 95 per cent of survivors have a broken or replaced door; Wikipedia says most examples on the market have one broken or replaced; Emulsive and Jim Grey each found theirs broken. An intact original door is the first thing to check, and a taped or replaced one is the normal condition.
  4. Canon's museum page gives the cells as "two 4 1.5 V batteries", which is a garbled rendering of two AAA (Wikipedia, Mike Eckman, Emulsive).
  5. Weight: 490 g from Canon, Wikipedia and Canon Classics; 489 g from Mike Eckman, weighed.
  6. Quick Focus is not autofocus. Three linear CCD arrays under a part-silvered area of the mirror look for the contrast peak and drive two arrows and a dot; the lens is turned by hand. Canon's museum says it was aimed at novices and at people with poor eyesight, and it works with any FD lens. Eckman found it accurate even with an f/7 telephoto; Jim Grey found it no faster than the screen.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • A focus-assist display in the finder, two red arrows and a green dot: the only FD body with one
  • AAA cells in the front grip, not a 4LR44 in the base
  • Body shell of polycarbonate painted to look like metal (Wikipedia), on an AV-1-style body with the AV-1's aperture-priority dial

AL-1 Quick Focus:

  • AL-1 on the prism front; Canon sold it as the AL-1 Quick Focus, QF for short (mir.com.my)
  • Two red arrows and a green dot at the bottom of the finder, driven by three linear CCD arrays under a part-silvered patch of the mirror; the arrows say which way to turn the ring and the dot lights at focus
  • A grip on the front holding two AAA cells behind a thin-hinged plastic door
  • Shutter-speed dial marked A, B and 1/15 to 1/1000 only: no manual speeds slower than 1/15

Serial-range notes

no range published
Chrome and black bodies, with no published serial split. The black is the scarcer (Canon Classics records it as a variation).

Specifications

Format
24×36mm on 35mm film, hinged back
Finder
Fixed eye-level pentaprism, laser-matte screen with the Quick Focus display below the image: red arrows either side of a green in-focus dot. Metered shutter speed shown on a scale down the side. · 0.87× magnification · 93% coverage · no rangefinder image
Shutter
four-axis horizontal-travel focal plane, cloth curtains, electronically controlled; stepless on automatic · 2s to 1/1000 stepless in aperture-priority AE; 1/15 to 1/1000 and B by hand · flash sync X at 1/60, hot shoe and a locking PC socket · self-timer
Film advance
single-stroke lever; Power Winder A or A2
Back
hinged
Meter
TTL full-aperture centre-weighted averaging, silicon photocell, EV 1 to 18 at ISO 100 with an f/1.4 lens; film speeds ISO 25 to 1600. Aperture-priority AE and a limited manual mode. The Quick Focus sensors work from EV 3.5 to 18. Two AAA cells power everything; there is no mechanical speed.
Motor drive
Power Winder A, Power Winder A2 — camera-wiki lists the two winders; Motor Drive MA is not listed for this body.
Weight
490 g
Dimensions
142 × 87 × 48 (W × H × D), body only, Canon's figure mm
Country
Japan
Original price
58,000 yen body only; 90,000 yen with the FD 50mm f/1.4, March 1982 (Canon Camera Museum) (today ¥80,000)
Accessories
Power Winder A and A2 · A-series Speedlites

Canon gives 92 per cent vertical and 93 per cent horizontal coverage.

Where sources disagree

Weight (grams)
  • 490 g (Canon Camera Museum; Wikipedia; Canon Classics)
  • 489 g (Mike Eckman, weighed)

Better supported: 490 g

What reviewers say

History

The AL-1 reached the shops in March 1982 at 58,000 yen for the body, the last new A-series camera and the cheapest way into an FD body with a feature nobody else’s had. Quick Focus is not autofocus. Three linear CCD arrays sit under a part-silvered patch of the mirror and look for the contrast peak; two red arrows at the bottom of the finder say which way to turn the focusing ring and a green dot lights when the lens is there. Canon’s museum says it was built for novices and for people with poor eyesight, and Wikipedia adds that it was meant to hold the line against the first autofocus SLRs, the Pentax ME F among them. It works with any FD lens, and Mike Eckman found it accurate even with an f/7 telephoto.

The rest of the camera is an AV-1 with a grip. Aperture-priority automation runs the shutter steplessly from 2 seconds to 1/1000; by hand there is B and 1/15 to 1/1000 and nothing slower. The meter reads EV 1 to 18 with an f/1.4 lens and takes films from ISO 25 to 1600; the finder is 0.87× and shows the metered speed down one side. The shell is polycarbonate painted to look like metal, and the whole thing weighs 490 g. Two AAA cells in the front grip run everything; without them there is no shutter at all.

Nothing about the body changed over its run that a buyer can use, and the run itself is undocumented: Canon gives no end date, no production figure exists, and Eckman calls the numbers extremely limited next to the AE-1 and AE-1 Program without putting a figure on them. It was sold in chrome and in black, with the black the scarcer. camera-wiki alone records that it was marketed in 1984 as an official product of the Los Angeles Olympics, which is why the page carries a single-source flag.

The thing to check is the battery door. The two AAA cells push against a plastic hinge about a millimetre thick, and the hinge gives way: Eckman rates the compartment among the worst on any camera and reckons more than 95 per cent of survivors have a broken or replaced door, Wikipedia says most on the market do, and Emulsive’s and Jim Grey’s examples were both broken. An intact original door is the exception and worth paying for; a taped or substituted one is the normal state of the species, and the camera works with it. Beyond that, the Quick Focus display should light and track when the lens is turned, and the meter is worth a test against a known one, since Grey’s ran a little over on every frame.

The verdicts split on what the camera is for. Eckman calls it the most optimal best-of-both-worlds body ever made, manual focus with confirmation and aperture priority in a compact shell; Emulsive calls it underrated; Grey found Quick Focus no faster than the screen and the camera competent and joyless. All three found the door broken.

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 AL-1
Canon AL-1, chrome — Peter Neelmeyer (Incognitussy), via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Canon AL-1
Canon AL-1 — Riverguardian, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $77 across 35 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-18 (middle half $50–$120). First day tracked.

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

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

Related: Canon A-1 · Canon AE-1 · Canon AE-1 Program · Canon AT-1 · Canon T70

Sources (8)

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.