Canon EOS-3 35mm Film Camera
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- Battery Type: Lithium Battery
- Film Type: 35mm
- Lens Mount: Canon EF
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Wonderful, but not for really for beginners
Pros
Accurate eye controlled focusing, Accurate metering, Well specified
Cons
Reliant on 2CR5 batteries
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
Is you still want a film camera, then this is one the finest ever made
This is sophisticated a camera and as such is not really suitable for absolute beginners, but at $875 I can not imagine many beginners buying it. To get the most out of it, you need to know your f stops from your ISO setting. There are no muppet settings such as a mountain image for landscape pictures. The instruction book, which is in English only, is over 100 pages long.
It's a very well specified camera:
Shutter speeds range from 30sec to 1/8000 sec.
The film advance can be single frame or continuous of 4.3 fps (frames per second.) If this is not fast enough, you can buy a booster the PB-E2, which allows 6fps with ordinary batteries and 7fps with a special rechargeable battery pack. The PB-E2 costs another $385, with rechargeable pack and charger an additional $450.
I love the eye-controlled focus feature (ECF). There are 45 focusing points on the focusing screen and when the ECF is switched on, the camera works out which one you are looking at and uses that to focus on the subject. You have to calibrate the ECF system to your eye first. This is time consuming, as you need to do it in several different light conditions for it to really work properly. I found that to get the ECF to work well, Canon's big eye cup, the Ed-E, is needed.
The metering is good. You have four options:
Traditional centre weighed averaging
Evaluative, which takes into account subject size, position and front and back lighting
Partial metering, which measures the central 8.5% of the screen
Spot metering, which measures a very small part of the screen 2.4%. This spot need not be in the centre of the screen, but can be linked to the chosen focusing point. You can also meter several small spots, one after another and the camera will average them.
You have an exposure compensation dial to intentionally under or over expose. For example, I set the exposure compensation to +1.5 stops when shooting in snowy conditions.
In addition to the exposure compensation, there is auto bracketing, where 3 shots are taken in succession; first at original exposure, second under exposed and third over exposed. Auto bracketing can be used in conjunction with exposure compensation. To get the best out of auto bracketing you should set the motor drive to continuous, rather than single frame.
The camera can be tailored to your needs by the custom functions, e.g. leaving the film leader out when rewinding or setting the shutter speed and aperture settings in 1/3, ? or whole stop settings. There are 18 custom functions in all.
Unless you buy a booster, the camera is dependent on 2CR5 batteries and these can be expensive if bought on the high street.
The camera doesn't have a built in flash, but in general these give very disappointing results, so it's not a great hardship.
One thing to look out for is that Canon sometimes run special offers. A couple years ago, if you bought this camera, you could claim a free flashgun or booster, both of which are worth $400.
It's a very well specified camera:
Shutter speeds range from 30sec to 1/8000 sec.
The film advance can be single frame or continuous of 4.3 fps (frames per second.) If this is not fast enough, you can buy a booster the PB-E2, which allows 6fps with ordinary batteries and 7fps with a special rechargeable battery pack. The PB-E2 costs another $385, with rechargeable pack and charger an additional $450.
I love the eye-controlled focus feature (ECF). There are 45 focusing points on the focusing screen and when the ECF is switched on, the camera works out which one you are looking at and uses that to focus on the subject. You have to calibrate the ECF system to your eye first. This is time consuming, as you need to do it in several different light conditions for it to really work properly. I found that to get the ECF to work well, Canon's big eye cup, the Ed-E, is needed.
The metering is good. You have four options:
Traditional centre weighed averaging
Evaluative, which takes into account subject size, position and front and back lighting
Partial metering, which measures the central 8.5% of the screen
Spot metering, which measures a very small part of the screen 2.4%. This spot need not be in the centre of the screen, but can be linked to the chosen focusing point. You can also meter several small spots, one after another and the camera will average them.
You have an exposure compensation dial to intentionally under or over expose. For example, I set the exposure compensation to +1.5 stops when shooting in snowy conditions.
In addition to the exposure compensation, there is auto bracketing, where 3 shots are taken in succession; first at original exposure, second under exposed and third over exposed. Auto bracketing can be used in conjunction with exposure compensation. To get the best out of auto bracketing you should set the motor drive to continuous, rather than single frame.
The camera can be tailored to your needs by the custom functions, e.g. leaving the film leader out when rewinding or setting the shutter speed and aperture settings in 1/3, ? or whole stop settings. There are 18 custom functions in all.
Unless you buy a booster, the camera is dependent on 2CR5 batteries and these can be expensive if bought on the high street.
The camera doesn't have a built in flash, but in general these give very disappointing results, so it's not a great hardship.
One thing to look out for is that Canon sometimes run special offers. A couple years ago, if you bought this camera, you could claim a free flashgun or booster, both of which are worth $400.
