Canon A2 with 24-85mm f3.5-4.5 lens
I reluctantly gave up on my beloved Olympus OM camera system after 13 years because aging eyes made precise focusing difficult. I then tried Nikon, with an 8008s and a 6006, but didn't get on with them at all.
Then I heard about Canon's Custom Function 4, which made it possible to autofocus on any point, push a small button on the back of the camera, and have the focus held at that point until I wanted to change it. That did it for me. I picked up two Canon EOS bodies, one of them an EOS 10S, which was a really good camera for its time. This was in 2003.
In late 1994, I began work on the Rock City Barns book, and soon picked up a clean, used Canon EOS A2. I liked it so much that I bought a second body in early 1995. Those two cameras were to be my workhorses for the next eight years, until the great digital switchover in 2003.
The Canon EOS A2 and its siblings, the A2e and EOS-5, were all-time great sleepers and were one of the best-kept secrets in photography. When first introduced they were nearly ten years ahead of the competition and were used by an astonishing number of working photographers. The A2's combination of just the right features, initial cost, precision, silence, durability, and reliability made it one of the best cameras ever made for day-in, day-out professional work.
As I said, I used a pair for eight years, and they were utterly reliable. My A2s were responsible for an award-winning coffee-table book (Rock City Barns: A Passing Era), numerous brochures, magazine articles, weddings, and all the other things in the work flow of a small-market commercial/editorial photographer.
When I retired the A2s, I gave one to a friend. The other sits in honored retirement on my bookshelf in memory of some good years in my career.
Below are a few photos from my A2s. All were made on Fujichrome 100D film.
Clearing storm, Lookout Mountain. Canon A2, 80-200mm f2.8L lens.
.jpg)
Rock City barn North Carolina 10.
Manning Brothers General Store. U.S. Highway 341 near Brunswick, GA.
Rock City barn Alabama 11.
Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia
are available. The price is $22.95 plus $3.95 shipping. My PayPal
address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943
Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how
you would like your book inscribed.
If you would like to have a print of one of my photographs, check out my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/ If you don't find what you want there, let me know and I'll arrange to include it in the gallery.
Photography and text copyright 2024 David B.Jenkins.
I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.
No comments:
Post a Comment