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

Canon EF

Canon · Canon FD mount · 24×36mm on 35mm film · 1973

Known as “Black Beauty”

Also known as: Canon EF · Canon EF SLR · Canon EF 1973 · Canon EF Black Beauty · Canon EF film camera · キヤノンEF · キャノンEF

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
EF Canon FD 1973–1978 — No figure published
  1. No production total has been published for the EF by Canon or by anyone else found here. canonclassics.com calls it a commercial failure that lasted "a year or so" on the market, which is contradicted by every other account's 1973 to 1978 run and is not adopted.
  2. The Canon Camera Museum prints the launch price as "89,500 yen (w/FD 55mm f/1.4SSC)" while listing the normal lenses as the 55mm f/1.2 SSC and the FD 50mm f/1.4 SSC. No 55mm f/1.4 FD lens exists; the price is taken as the 50mm f/1.4 kit and the museum's wording is recorded as printed.
  3. The 15 and 30 second settings actually run 16 and 32 seconds, preserving the doubling sequence, on canonclassics.com's account. One source, and not confirmed here.
  4. The voltage regulator is the reason this camera meters correctly on 1.5 V cells where every other mercury-cell Canon of the period does not: camera-wiki, canonclassics.com and Mike Eckman all state it. Against that, Danilo Leonardi at analog.cafe reports about two stops of underexposure on modern 1.5 V PX625 cells without modification. Three accounts to one; adopted as regulated, and the disagreement kept.
  5. The meter draws current whenever the power switch is left on, and several reviewers report bodies that drain batteries; Casual Photophile's Canon buying guide carries a reader who removed the cells and shoots the mechanical speeds with a hand meter. 35mmc's reviewer says a working meter is the hard thing to find.
  6. Alex Luyckx's review of the EF could not be reached (HTTP 503 at the time of writing), and mir.com.my has no EF page in its Canon FD index. Ken Rockwell, Kosmo Foto and Casual Photophile have not reviewed the camera as far as could be found.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • The only FD-mount Canon with a vertical-travel Copal Square metal-blade shutter
  • Mechanical speeds 1/2 to 1/1000 and B that fire with the batteries out; 1 to 30 seconds electronic
  • A power switch that also locks the wind lever when off
  • No motor drive or winder coupling on the baseplate, and no interchangeable finder or screen

EF:

  • EF on the front of the prism housing; black finish, which is where the Black Beauty nickname comes from
  • A very large shutter-speed dial at the front right of the top plate, overhanging the front of the body
  • Two separate battery compartments on the baseplate, one PX625 cell each
  • A mirror lock-up lever on the front of the body beside the lens mount, and a stop-down lever
  • Vertical metal shutter blades visible with the back open: no other FD body has them

Specifications

Format
24×36mm on 35mm film
Finder
Fixed eye-level pentaprism, fixed screen; aperture and shutter speed both displayed · 0.82× magnification · no rangefinder image
Shutter
Copal Square vertical-travel metal-blade focal plane, mechanical at 1/2 and faster, electronic from 1 to 30 seconds · 30s – 1/1000 and B; 1/2 – 1/1000 and B are mechanical, 1 – 30s electronically timed · flash sync X at 1/125; automatic-switching sync contacts · self-timer
Film advance
single-stroke lever
Back
hinged
Meter
TTL full-aperture centre-weighted averaging on a silicon photocell, with an exposure lock button. Film speeds ASA 12 to 3200. Two PX625 cells nominally 1.3 V, behind a voltage regulator, so 1.5 V cells are used without compensation.
Motor drive
Not compatible — No winder or motor drive was made for the EF, and the F-1's do not fit.
Weight
760 g
Dimensions
147 × 96 × 48 (Canon Camera Museum); English Wikipedia gives 147 × 99 × 48 mm
Country
Japan
Original price
89,500 yen with the 50mm f/1.4 SSC, November 1973 (Canon Camera Museum, which prints the lens as "FD 55mm f/1.4SSC"); $459.99 with the 50mm f/1.4 in the 1976 Sears catalogue, against $549 for an F-1 and $299 for an FTb (Mike Eckman) (today ¥252,000)
Accessories
Speedlite with CAT (Canon Auto Tuning) flash coupling

Where sources disagree

Meter (low end of the range)
  • EV -2 to EV 18 at ISO 100 with a 50mm f/1.4 (English Wikipedia; analog.cafe)
  • EV 2 to EV 18 (camera-wiki)

Better supported: EV -2

The 30-second electronic speeds only make sense with a meter that reads well below EV 2, and two accounts against one. camera-wiki's figure may be a dropped minus sign.

Dimensions (mm)
  • 147 × 96 × 48 mm (Canon Camera Museum; canonclassics.com)
  • 147 × 99 × 48 mm (English Wikipedia)

Better supported: 147 × 96 × 48

The maker's figure, repeated by a second source. Weight is 760 g in all three.

What reviewers say

History

The EF went on sale in November 1973 at 89,500 yen with a 50mm f/1.4 SSC. Canon’s own museum calls it the company’s first automatic-exposure SLR and makes a point of the direction it took: shutter priority, so the photographer picks a speed fast enough to hold the camera steady and the body sets the aperture, when nearly every other maker’s automation of the moment was aperture priority. Canon stayed with that choice through the AE-1 and the rest of the A series. The EF is where it began.

Mechanically it is a different camera from anything else in the FD line. The shutter is a Copal Square, vertical metal blades rather than Canon’s horizontal cloth, and it is a hybrid: 1/2 to 1/1000 and B are timed mechanically and fire with the batteries out, while 1 to 30 seconds are electronic. Flash sync is 1/125. The meter is a silicon cell reading centre-weighted at full aperture, with a lock button, and it runs from two PX625 cells through a voltage regulator, which is why this body meters correctly on 1.5 V cells where the F-1 and FTb of the same years do not. There is a mirror lock, a self-timer, and a full-information finder showing both aperture and shutter speed. There is no motor coupling, no interchangeable finder and no interchangeable screen: the F-1’s accessories do not fit, and none were made for the EF.

It was priced accordingly. Mike Eckman found it in the 1976 Sears catalogue at $459.99 with the 50mm f/1.4, between the F-1 at $549 and the FTb at $299. Production ran to 1978 and no total has been published. The camera came in black, and the Black Beauty nickname follows from that; a huge shutter-speed dial at the front right of the top plate, overhanging the body so it can be turned with a fingertip from behind the camera, is the other thing that identifies one at arm’s length. Two round battery caps on the baseplate, rather than one, settle it.

What to check is mostly the meter. The switch also serves as a wind-lever lock, and a body left switched on drains its cells; several reviewers describe examples that eat batteries, and 35mmc’s reviewer says a working meter is the hard part of buying one. Test the ASA dial, which shifts easily, fire the speeds above 1/125 and the electronic slow speeds, work the mirror lock, and expect light seals to need replacing. The mechanical speeds mean a dead meter still leaves a usable manual camera with a hand-held meter, which is how at least one owner runs his.

Published figures disagree in small ways. Canon gives 147 × 96 × 48 mm and Wikipedia 147 × 99 × 48; the meter’s low end is EV -2 in Wikipedia and analog.cafe and EV 2 in camera-wiki; and analog.cafe measures two stops of underexposure on 1.5 V cells where three other accounts say the regulator makes them a straight swap. The weight, 760 g body only, everybody agrees on.

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 EF
Canon EF — RRT877, via Wikimedia Commons (CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication)
Canon EF
Canon EF — Pcs34560, via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain (released by the copyright holder))

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $150 across 35 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-18 (middle half $120–$180). First day tracked.

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

Show 29 more listings

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

Related: Canon A-1 · Canon AE-1 · Canon AT-1 · Canon F-1 · Canon FTb · Canon New F-1

Sources (9)

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.