The Canon T80 is

Canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the material accepted as officially written by an author or an ascribed author * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western canon, th ...

's first

autofocus An autofocus (AF) optical system uses a sensor, a control system and a motor to focus on an automatically or manually selected point or area. An electronic rangefinder has a display instead of the motor; the adjustment of the optical system h ...

35mm

single-lens reflex camera In photography, a single-lens reflex camera (SLR) is a type of camera that uses a mirror and prism system to allow photographers to view through the lens and see exactly what will be captured. SLRs became the dominant design for professional a ...

. It was introduced in April 1985 and discontinued in June 1986 and is part of the T series of FD mount cameras. It is not compatible with Canon's later

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system and its autofocus EF-mount lenses. Three special lenses, designated ''AC'', were produced specifically for the camera. Other FD-mount lenses can also be used, but without autofocus capabilities.

Autofocus

The autofocus system in the T80 works in the same manner as the focus assist system built into the earlier AL-1. A linear CCD is used to detect contrast in the focus area. When this area has the maximum contrast, the lens is in focus. This is a similar mechanism to that used in compact

digital camera A digital camera, also called a digicam, is a camera that captures photographs in Digital data storage, digital memory. Most cameras produced today are digital, largely replacing those that capture images on photographic film or film stock. Dig ...

s. When a manual focus lens is used, the camera provides focus assistance in exactly the same manner as the AL-1. The autofocus lenses contain a motor, and electrical contacts in the lens mount connect this motor to the camera's circuits.

Auto exposure and scene modes

Except for its autofocus capability, the T80 is very similar to the earlier T70, with four programmed scene modes in addition to regular Program auto-exposure (AE). These are: * Deep Focus – the camera chooses a narrow aperture in order to get more

depth of field The depth of field (DOF) is the distance between the nearest and the farthest objects that are in acceptably sharp focus (optics), focus in an image captured with a camera. See also the closely related depth of focus. Factors affecting depth ...

. Useful for landscapes, or other situations when the photographer needs to get everything in reasonable focus. Trades off against a slow shutter speed. * Shallow Focus – the camera chooses a wide aperture to get a shallow depth of field. Useful for portraiture, to reduce background distractions. * Stop Action – the camera chooses a fast shutter speed so that movement is stopped. Useful for sports, wildlife, children etc. * Flowing – the camera chooses a longer shutter speed for deliberate motion or panning blur. * Program – the camera has more freedom of choice. Tends to prefer reasonably quick shutter speeds for minimal blurring.

Film transport

Film transport in the T80 is completely automatic, just as in the T70, in both directions. This leaves the top of the camera very clean, since there is no advance lever or rewind knob. Film loading is automatic; the user only has to align the film leader with an orange mark and close the back, and the camera loads and advances the film automatically. Indicators on the top

LCD A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat-panel display or other electronically modulated optical device that uses the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals combined with polarizers to display information. Liquid crystals do not em ...

display the status of loading, winding and rewinding. The motor, and the camera's other functions including the focusing motor in the lens, are powered by 4

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housed in the base of the camera.

AC lenses

Three special autofocus AC lenses were produced for the T80. Each lens contains a motor to focus, unlike the body-integral AF system pioneered by

Minolta was a Japanese manufacturer of cameras, lenses, camera accessories, photocopiers, fax machines, and laser printers. Minolta Co., Ltd., which is also known simply as Minolta, was founded in Osaka, Japan, in 1928 as . It made the first integrated ...

. All are readily identifiable by a boxy area on the upper left (viewed from the camera) containing the motor, and a red ring around the front lens element. The lenses are: * AC 50mm f/1.8 * AC 35-70mm f/3.5-4.5 * AC 75-200mm f/4.5 All three, like the T80 itself, were only produced for a short time and are rare. The auto-focus function does not work on any other camera, although they can be used as manual-focus FD lenses. However they lack aperture rings, so they are only useful on FD camera bodies that could control the aperture from the body. There is one other Canon FD autofocus lens, the Canon New FD 35-70 mm f/4 AF. This was introduced in 1981, and uses a similar autofocus system to the T80's lenses, with an integral autofocus motor. The lens has a self-contained autofocus system that does not require autofocus electronics in the camera body. Canon, unlike

and

Nikon (, ; ) is a Japanese optics and photographic equipment manufacturer. Nikon's products include cameras, camera lenses, binoculars, microscopes, ophthalmic lenses, measurement instruments, rifle scopes, spotting scopes, and equipment related to S ...

, was convinced that having the motor in the lens was the optimal approach; this line of thinking continued with the new EOS system in 1987, which remains Canon's standard mounting system for SLRs today.

Data back

A ''Command Back 80'' was available for the T80. Like the similar back available for the T90, it supports date stamping of images, alphanumeric coding of images, time exposures and time-lapse interval exposure.

References

Canon T80 Camera
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Photography in Malaysia

External links

{{Table of Canon SLR T80