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

Canon T90

Canon · Canon FD mount · 24×36mm on 35mm film, hinged back · 1986

single source, unconfirmed

Known as “The Tank”

Also known as: Canon T90 · Canon T-90 · T90 · キヤノンT90 · キャノンT90 · Canon T90 body

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
T90 Canon FD 1986 — —
  1. No production total has been published, and the end of the run is disputed three ways: see below. Canon's museum gives only the February 1986 launch. What is agreed is that the EOS 650 of March 1987 replaced it at the top of the range with a new mount, and that Canon stopped supporting the camera in 1998, after which no spares were available.
  2. Single-source claims on this page, kept because they are specific and plausible but flagged: that Canon presented Colani with the first production body engraved with his name (Wikipedia); the 1991 discontinuation (a Popular Photography reader reply, via Azriel Knight); and Popular Photography's lab finding that accuracy at 1/4000 fell by about 0.6 EV (via Knight).
  3. The Colani attribution is not the whole story. Wikipedia, Kosmo Foto and mir.com.my agree that Colani supplied the form and that Kunihisa Ito of ODS Co. Ltd. composed the final design from it; Canon's own museum page does not name either man. Computer-aided design and CNC-milled moulding dies were introduced at Canon for this camera (Wikipedia).
  4. The EEE fault, for buyers. The shutter release runs through electromagnets, and when one fails to release the mirror goes up, the shutter stays shut, the LCD shows EEE and the finder shows HELP. Wikipedia attributes it to dirt on the shutter magnets and to a rubber damper in the shutter that turns sticky with age; the Photrio repair threads (unreachable here, summarised only from search) add that the foam damper at the bottom of the shutter decays into a mass that contaminates the blades. It appears most often after a long period unused, regular use delays it, and the proper cure is a shutter strip-down by a technician. Mike Eckman found that the magnet trick circulating online did not work on his.
  5. The other things to check: the LCD, whose commonly quoted life is five to ten years and for which no replacement exists; the plastic four-cell battery holder, which cracks; the soldered lithium backup cell, which keeps frame count and ISO and whose replacement means disassembly; and the loose flap over the left-hand buttons, which the3rs found opens itself in the hand.
  6. Canon's specification gives 800g body only. Mike Eckman weighed his at 887g, presumably with cells fitted, which are not in Canon's figure. The four AA cells account for most of the gap.
  7. The metering set is largely borrowed: centre-weighted, partial and spot from the New F-1 (which needs a screen change to switch, where the T90 needs a button), and multi-spot, highlight and shadow readings from the Olympus OM-4 (Wikipedia). There is no matrix metering; Nikon had it on the FA from 1983, Canon waited for the EOS 650.
  8. What the T90 did first: the first Canon with TTL off-the-film flash metering, the first Canon to sync at 1/250, and the first mass-market camera with second-curtain sync, all with the Speedlite 300TL launched alongside it (Wikipedia, mir.com.my). It is also the only non-EOS Canon that works with Canon's TTL flashes.
  9. Three modifications circulate: Canon service centres would add a PC sync socket on request; a mirror lock-up can be added by a documented modification, since Canon judged the mirror damping sufficient and fitted none; and leader-out rewind needs only two solder pads bridged, the function being in the firmware but not enabled (Wikipedia).
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Colani's curved shell: nothing else in the FD line looks like it, and every EOS body since borrows from it
  • Top-plate LCD with pictograms, the input dial at the index finger, mode and metering buttons under a flap on the left
  • Motor drive built in, 4.5 frames a second from four AA cells; no advance lever, no rewind crank
  • 1/4000 top speed and 1/250 sync on a vertical metal shutter; a 7-segment LED readout inside the finder

T90:

  • The rounded, sculpted body with no straight edge on the prism housing: Luigi Colani's shape, the only Canon SLR designed outside the company
  • An input dial behind the shutter release, worked by the right index finger; a large pictographic LCD on the top right
  • Four AA cells in a plastic holder in the base; a remote socket under the right grip for the 60T3 wired release
  • No PC sync socket as built; one on the left of the prism housing is a Canon service-centre addition

Specifications

Format
24×36mm on 35mm film, hinged back
Finder
Fixed eye-level pentaprism, not interchangeable; eight interchangeable focusing screens, the standard one a New Split/Microprism on a Laser Matte field; 7-segment LED display along the bottom · 0.77× magnification · 94% coverage · no rangefinder image
Shutter
vertical-travel metal focal plane, all speeds electronically controlled, half-step settings available · 30s – 1/4000 and B · flash sync 1/250 (X), hot shoe; A-TTL and TTL off-the-film with the Speedlite 300TL; second-curtain sync · self-timer
Film advance
built-in motor drive; H at 4.5 frames a second, L at 2, and single frame; automatic loading and powered rewind, about 8 seconds for a 24-exposure roll
Back
hinged; Command Back 90 and Data Memory Back 90 replace it
Meter
TTL full-aperture, two silicon cells: a double-area SPC above the eyepiece for centre-weighted average and partial (13%) readings, and a second SPC at the base of the mirror box, fed through a half-silvered patch of the main mirror, for spot (2.7%), multi-spot up to eight readings, highlight and shadow readings, and off-the-film flash metering. EV 0–20 at ISO 100 with a 50mm f/1.4; ISO 6–6400, DX read.
Motor drive
Not compatible — The drive is built in: three coreless micromotors, one for film advance, one in the grip to charge the shutter, mirror and aperture, and one for rewind. Canon quotes about 75 rolls of 24 on alkaline cells in H, roughly double in L.
Designed by
Colani Luigi — exterior form, the 'bio-form' curves; the first Canon camera designed outside the company · Ito Kunihisa (伊藤邦久) — of ODS Co. Ltd.; composed the final design from Colani's ideas (Wikipedia, Kosmo Foto)
Weight
800 g
Dimensions
153.1 × 121 × 69.4 (W × H × D), 800g body only, from Canon's specification mm
Country
Japan
Original price
148,000 yen body only; 180,000 yen with the FD 50mm f/1.4 (February 1986, Canon Camera Museum). $599 body only in the United States (Mike Eckman; American Photographer of March 1986 gave $600, via Azriel Knight) (today $1,710)
Accessories
Speedlite 300TL (A-TTL, FEL, second-curtain sync, zoom head 24–85mm) · ML-2 macro ring flash; the later ML-3 also works · Command Back 90 (date and data imprinting, timed and interval exposures) · Data Memory Back 90 (records 16 variables for 156 frames or six for 338; MSX computer interface; certain markets only) · 60T3 wired remote; LC-2 infrared remote with an auto-sensing mode · Eight focusing screens

Where sources disagree

Last
  • 1987, after about a year in production — Wikipedia ("overtaken ... after only a year in production"), mir.com.my ("barely a year", the shortest life of any FD SLR), Canon Classics
  • 1991 — a Popular Photography reader reply, cited by Azriel Knight
  • 1998 — Mike Eckman, who writes that Canon made the camera from 1986 to 1998; Wikipedia gives 1998 as the year Canon stopped supporting it

Better supported: 1987

The EOS 650 arrived in March 1987 and the accounts that say a year are the more numerous, but Canon itself has not dated the end of the run, and the 1998 figure is more likely the end of service than of manufacture. Left absent.

Weight (grams)
  • 800g body only — Canon Camera Museum and Canon's specification at mir.com.my
  • 887g — Mike Eckman, weighing a body himself

Better supported: 800g

Settled with the maker; the difference is roughly four AA cells.

Original price usd
  • $599 body only — Mike Eckman
  • $600 suggested retail — American Photographer, March 1986, via Azriel Knight

Better supported: $599

The same price, rounded differently.

What reviewers say

History

The T90 went on sale in February 1986 at 148,000 yen for the body, aimed by Canon’s own account at advanced amateurs and professionals, and it was obsolete thirteen months later when the EOS 650 arrived with autofocus and a mount that would not take an FD lens. It is the last manual-focus Canon of any rank, the last professional FD body, and by most accounts the shortest-lived SLR Canon ever sold. It is also, by the same accounts, the camera that decided what every Canon SLR after it would look and feel like.

The shape is Luigi Colani’s, the first time Canon had let anyone outside the company design a camera. Colani supplied the curved “bio-form” and Kunihisa Ito of ODS Co. Ltd. turned it into a product; Canon adopted computer-aided design and CNC-milled moulding dies to make the shell, and is said to have given Colani the first body off the line with his name engraved on it. The form was possible because nothing on the T90 is mechanically linked: three coreless micromotors advance the film at 4.5 frames a second, charge the shutter and mirror, and rewind, all from four AA cells, and two CPUs (a 32 kHz main processor for the LCD and state, a 1 MHz sub-processor for exposure, finder display and motors) run the rest. With no lever, no crank and no dials to place, the designers put an input dial behind the shutter release where the index finger falls, an LCD on the top plate that the T70 had introduced two years earlier, and the mode buttons under a flap on the left. The EOS bodies still use that arrangement. Japanese photojournalists called it the Tank.

The specification was the sum of everything then known. A vertical metal shutter from 30 seconds to 1/4000, with 1/250 sync, the fastest Canon had built. Centre-weighted, partial (13%) and spot (2.7%) metering switched by a button rather than by a screen change as on the New F-1, plus multi-spot averaging of up to eight readings and highlight and shadow readings borrowed from the Olympus OM-4, all from two silicon cells, one above the eyepiece and one at the foot of the mirror box behind a half-silvered patch of the mirror. Eight exposure modes with a safety shift. The first Canon with TTL off-the-film flash, the first mass-market camera with second-curtain sync, and a dedicated Speedlite 300TL to use them. The finder is 0.77× and 94% with eight interchangeable screens; the prism does not come off. Canon’s figure is 800 grams body only, 153 by 121 by 69 mm.

There is one version and no serial-number lore. What matters when buying is the electronics, and the fault everyone names is EEE. The release works through electromagnets, and when the shutter fails to follow the mirror the LCD shows EEE, the finder shows HELP, and the camera stops. The accepted causes are contamination on the shutter magnets and a rubber damper in the shutter that turns to glue with age; the fault shows up most on cameras that have sat unused, regular use delays it, and the cure is a shutter strip-down by someone who knows the camera, since Canon ended support in 1998. Mike Eckman bought two, neither worked, and the magnet trick that circulates online did not fix his. Beyond that, look at the LCD (five to ten years was the quoted life, and there is no replacement), the plastic battery holder in the base (it cracks), and the soldered lithium cell that keeps the frame count and ISO (five years, and a technician to change). Bodies that sync through a PC socket have been to a Canon service centre, which added them on request; mirror lock-up and leader-out rewind were never fitted and exist only as owner modifications.

How long it was made is not settled. Wikipedia and mir.com.my say about a year, a Popular Photography reader put it at 1991, and Eckman writes 1986 to 1998, which is more probably the service life. Canon dates the launch and nothing else, and has never published a production figure. The price in America was $599, about $1,400 today on Eckman’s arithmetic, and the most Canon had asked for a manual-focus camera.

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 T90
Canon T90 — Lewis Collard (User:Collard), via Wikimedia Commons (Attribution)
Canon T90
Canon T90 with an older lens fitted — Mathias Heinel, Malmö, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Canon T90
The T90's top-plate LCD — Mohammed S., via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.5)

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $160 across 43 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-18 (middle half $100–$200). 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 Program · Canon F-1 · Canon New F-1 · Canon T70

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 300mm f/2.8 Fluorite / L · FD 50mm f/1.2 / f/1.2 L · FD 85mm f/1.2 Aspherical / L

Sources (16)

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.