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

Canon New F-1

Canon · Canon FD mount · 24×36mm on 35mm film, hinged back · 1981

single source, unconfirmed

Also known as: Canon New F-1 · New F1 · F-1 New · F1 New · F-1N · F1N · New F-1 AE · F-1N AE · ニューF-1 · キヤノン New F-1 · New F-1 LA · F-1 Los Angeles

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
New F-1 Canon FD 1981–1994 — No figure published; the last body is thought to have been made in 1992 (Wikipedia)
New F-1 Los Angeles 1984 Olympic edition Canon FD 1983–1984 LA-prefixed About 9,000 to 9,900 (Chris Whelan, Chasing Classic Cameras; nothing from Canon)
New F-1 High Speed Motor Drive Camera Canon FD 1984–1984 — Estimated at under a hundred (Wikipedia, unsourced)
  1. The quantity for the Los Angeles edition, about 9,000 to 9,900, and the LA serial prefix come from Chris Whelan's Chasing Classic Cameras alone. The estimate of under a hundred High Speed cameras is Wikipedia's and cites nothing. The page carries the single-source flag for these.
  2. Canon has published no production total. Wikipedia's dates are that the last body is thought to have been made in 1992, that the model was officially discontinued in 1994, and that factory support ended in 2004; the first of those is stated as unconfirmed.
  3. The metering range is EV 1 to 18 on Canon's museum page and EV -1 to 20 on mir.com.my's transcription of the specification sheet and on Wikipedia; the wider figure may be for the AE Finder FN or a later revision of the sheet. Recorded under disputed.
  4. mir.com.my calls this camera the "F-1n" throughout its site, which is the collector trade's name for the 1976 mechanical F-1. Listings titled F-1N are read from the photographs.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Front grip over the battery compartment and a hot shoe on the finder, neither of which the mechanical F-1 has
  • The shutter dial carries an A position and runs to 8 seconds; the mechanical F-1 stops at 1 second
  • Gold lettering, an Olympic emblem beside the rewind crank and an LA serial prefix mark the 1984 edition

New F-1:

  • Canon and F-1 lettering in white on the front
  • Hand grip on the front covering the battery compartment; hot shoe on top of the finder
  • Shutter dial with an A position, and speeds from 8 seconds to 1/2000
  • Serial number without a letter prefix

New F-1 Los Angeles 1984 Olympic edition:

  • Canon and F-1 lettering in gold in place of white, on a matt black body
  • Gold 1984 Olympic emblem on the rewind side of the front, and a badge inside the memo holder
  • Serial number prefixed LA

New F-1 High Speed Motor Drive Camera:

  • Fixed pellicle mirror; integral motor with two dedicated 24V nicad packs
  • 157 × 70 × 262 mm and 2,180 g with the battery pack; stopped-down metering only

Serial-range notes

LA-prefixed
The Los Angeles 1984 edition carries an LA prefix (LA6312 is one documented example) on Chris Whelan's account and in the listings that carry photographs. Not a factory statement.

Specifications

Format
24×36mm on 35mm film, hinged back
Finder
Interchangeable: Eye-Level Finder FN as standard, AE Finder FN for aperture priority, Speed Finder FN, Waist-Level Finder FN and FN-6X. Thirty-two focusing screens of thirteen types, and the screen sets the metering pattern. · 0.8× magnification · 97% coverage · no rangefinder image
Shutter
four-axis horizontal-travel focal plane, titanium curtains, hybrid: mechanical at the fast end, electronic at the slow end · 8s – 1/2000 and B; the fast speeds work with no battery, the slow speeds and the A position need it · flash sync X at 1/90, German socket with locking pin and hot shoe · self-timer
Film advance
single-stroke lever, 139° with a 30° stand-off, partial strokes allowed; automatic frame counter reset
Back
hinged, with a memo holder; interchangeable with the Data Back FN
Meter
Silicon photocell, TTL full-aperture match-needle; centre-weighted, selective-area (partial) or spot depending on which focusing screen is fitted. EV 1 to 18 at ISO 100 with an f/1.4 lens on Canon's museum page, EV -1 to 20 on mir.com.my and Wikipedia. Exposure compensation of plus or minus 2 EV. Aperture priority with the AE Finder FN, shutter priority with the AE Motor Drive FN or AE Power Winder FN. One 6V cell, 4LR44 alkaline or 2CR-1/3N lithium.
Motor drive
AE Motor Drive FN, AE Power Winder FN — Either one enables shutter-priority automation; the body alone is manual or, with the AE finder, aperture priority.
Weight
795 g
Dimensions
146.7 × 96.6 × 48.3 (mir.com.my and Wikipedia); Canon's museum rounds to 147 × 97 × 48 mm
Country
Japan
Original price
149,000 yen body only, 181,000 yen with the FD 50mm f/1.4, 201,000 yen with the FD 50mm f/1.2, September 1981 (Canon Camera Museum). High Speed Motor Drive Camera 1,300,300 yen, February 1984. (today ¥211,000)
Accessories
AE Finder FN, Speed Finder FN, Waist-Level Finder FN, FN-6X · AE Motor Drive FN and AE Power Winder FN · Data Back FN

Where sources disagree

Speeds (where mechanical ends and electronic begins)
  • Mechanical 1/125 to 1/2000, electronic 8s to 1/90 (Canon Camera Museum)
  • Mechanical 1/2000 to 1/125, electronic 1/60 to 8s (mir.com.my's specification transcription)
  • Mechanical 1/90 to 1/2000, electronic 8s to 1/60 (Wikipedia)

Better supported: Canon

Everyone agrees the shutter is a hybrid and that X sync is 1/90; the sources differ on which side of the line 1/90 sits. Canon's page puts it with the electronic speeds.

Meter range
  • EV 1 to 18 at ISO 100, f/1.4 (Canon Camera Museum)
  • EV -1 to 20 at ISO 100, f/1.4 (mir.com.my and Wikipedia)

Unresolved; possibly a finder-dependent figure.

What reviewers say

History

The New F-1 was introduced in March 1981 and went on sale in September at 149,000 yen for the body, a year behind the Nikon F3 and the Pentax LX. It kept the old name because Canon had promised in 1971 that the F-1 would stand unchanged for ten years and did not want to be seen breaking the promise a year early; the museum page says so in as many words. Underneath the name it is a different camera, laser-welded and machined by numerical control, five per cent lighter than the body it replaced on mir.com.my’s account, and hybrid where the old one was mechanical.

The hybrid is the point. The fast shutter speeds are governed mechanically and work with no battery in the camera; the slow speeds and the automatic position are electronic and stop when the 6-volt cell does. Canon’s page draws the line at 1/125, mir.com.my and Wikipedia at 1/90 or 1/60, and the disagreement is recorded rather than resolved. The meter moved from CdS to a silicon cell and reads at full aperture, and its pattern is set by the focusing screen: fit one screen for centre-weighted, another for partial, a third for spot, out of thirty-two screens of thirteen types. Automation lives in the accessories. The body alone is a match-needle manual camera. The AE Finder FN adds aperture priority when the dial is set to A; the AE Motor Drive FN or AE Power Winder FN adds shutter priority. The same body is three cameras depending on what is bolted to it, which is what a professional system was supposed to mean and is also, on Jim Grey’s account, why it needs the manual: set the lens to A with the plain finder and the shutter will not fire.

Two editions sit alongside the run. For the Los Angeles Games of 1984, where Canon was the official camera, the New F-1 was issued in matt black with the Canon and F-1 lettering in gold instead of white, a gold Olympic emblem on the rewind side, a badge inside the memo holder, a special strap and an LA serial prefix. Chris Whelan dates them from November 1983 to at least April 1984 and estimates about nine thousand or a little more; nothing on that comes from Canon, and the gold wears off, so a worn one reads as a plain body. In February 1984 came the High Speed Motor Drive Camera, a fixed-pellicle-mirror body with an integral motor and two 24-volt nicad packs, 14 frames a second and a 36-exposure roll in 2.57 seconds, at 1,300,300 yen, in a run Wikipedia guesses at under a hundred.

The naming is the trap for a buyer. Canon’s museum calls the 1976 revision of the mechanical camera the F-1N, collectors call it the F-1n, mir.com.my calls this camera the F-1n, and sellers write F-1N for either. The photographs settle it: a moulded grip on the front covering a battery compartment, a hot shoe on top of the finder, and a shutter dial that runs to 8 seconds and carries an A make a New F-1. Beyond that, the reviewers’ cautions are the battery, which drains quickly in the cold, and the gold lettering on an LA body, which should be left alone. No production total has been published; Wikipedia has the last body built in 1992, the model discontinued in 1994 and factory support ended in 2004.

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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 New F-1
Canon New F-1 — Mmweber, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Canon New F-1
New F-1 Los Angeles 1984 Olympic edition, gold lettering and emblem — Mike Caine from Isle of Man, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Canon New F-1
New F-1 Los Angeles edition with AE finder, motor drive and the FD 55mm f/1.2 aspherical — Wolfgang Thanner, via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $380 across 48 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-18 (middle half $290–$450). First day tracked.

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

Show 95 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 A-1 · Canon EF · Canon F-1 · 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 24mm f/2.8 · FD 28mm f/2 · FD 300mm f/2.8 Fluorite / L · FD 35mm f/2 · FD 50mm f/1.2 / f/1.2 L · FD 50mm f/1.4 · FD 55mm f/1.2 · FD 85mm f/1.2 Aspherical / L

Sources (13)

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.