Today Bryan, Cat, Andy & I went to El Yunque to do the illicit hiking thing. Was fun, nearly died, etc. On the way back we stopped at a little tourist shop on the mountain and Cat made us pose in one of those wood things with the painting of some scene with holes cut out for the faces. An old couple then asked if we'd take a picture with their camera of them in said device of self-esteem attrition. It turned out it was a cool old, fully-manual 35mm SLR. It reminded me how much I like shooting with a fully manual camera. I've lately been wishing I still had a film SLR so I could shoot black & white - converting digital photos to grayscale isn't satisfying, because it just doesn't look the same. So this got me thinking about looking for a cheap old 35mm SLR in pawn shops and stuff when I visit Clemson (hopefully around the beginning of September). The only downside of that, of course, is that none of my growing collection of Canon EF lenses would work with such a camera, even if it was a Canon; manual Canon SLRs used the older FD-style lens mount. Except...

I remembered reading about one oddball camera Canon made briefly about 10 years ago, called the EOS EF-M. I looked around online and found the details about it. It was made between 1991 and 1994, and for some reason was a fully manual camera meant to use Canon EF autofocus lenses, set in manual mode of course, but fully supporting the electronic control of aperture. It was not a high-end camera, but certainly not bottom of the line either. It supports automatic exposure (though it's the simple +/- system rather than the more modern simulated match needle system), evaluative metering, exposure compensation, and has a motor drive. It doesn't have a built-in flash, nor offer depth-of-field preview, etc, but it does have the split-ring focus screen and two separate dials for easily adjusting shutter speed and aperture. It would work great as a simple manual camera for occasional use with B&W film, that I could still use all of my lenses with. The only downside is that it doesn't support any of Canon's line of automatic Speedlite EX flashes (one of which I own) - it only supports automatic flash metering when used with the old Speedlite 200M, which is fortunately still available, but costs around $90. Meh, this wouldn't be used often enough to merit buying a second flash to go with it, and I think the benefit of being able to use all my lenses with it outweighs that downside. Besides, any other manual SLR I got would be equally incompatible with my existing flash, so it's not really an issue one way or the other.

The remaining question was whether I could find an EF-M, and how much it would cost, as they're a bit rare. But a quick search on Ebay revealed two options in great condition, both under $40. This seems to be a great price - I searched the web to get some idea of the value of these cameras, and found this:

I've found a broken EF-M for $12 US and a working EF-M for $85 US on an auction site, so they're not impossible to find. It just takes time searching now and then. Used camera retailers KEH and B&H sometimes carry them, but usually they ask well over $100 US for a working model. (Installing a Canon EF-M split-circle viewfinder screen into an EOS camera)

Awesome. So I'm going to bid on one or the other of those, and hopefully soon will have a nice second camera to use for shooting B&W film, and to enjoy the feeling of shooting with a manual camera like my dad's 30-year-old Nikkormat I used to use in high school, before it was stolen.

One other cool thing is found in the page quoted. It is possible to transfer the split prism focusing screen from an EF-M into some EOS cameras (in fact, that's really the only reason anyone is interested in the EF-M these days). Odds are a camera released so long after the EF-M won't have the same size pentaprism - I don't know for sure since the page linked above was written before the 300D (Digital Rebel) came out - but if I grow tired of using a second camera just for the manual focus and ability to use film, there's a small chance I may be able to transfer the screen from the EF-M into my 300D and at least get the split ring focusing, if not the ability to shoot film.