… I’ve decided to return to my photography blog and revive it. Why? Well, Two years ago last month, my husband’s elderly uncle passed away and we had to sort through all his belongings. It’s a sobering and sombre experience at the best of times and neither of us wanted to dwell on the task too long. We were busy anyway because the summer holiday season was already upon us and the Gallery was busy as well as our holiday apartments. But one of our discoveries was a rather tatty khaki coloured bag on the top shelf of his wardrobe. Inside was his old camera, some lenses and a flashgun.
It turned out to be a T50, one of Canon’s first Point-and-Shoot SLR cameras, introduced in March 1983 and last produced in 1989. There weren’t many photo prints but there was a box of colour slides, mainly images of his late wife’s beautiful watercolour paintings, so that was effectively an artistic archive. I need to borrow a slide scanner from someone so I can scan all the slides to hard disk.
Luckily there was a Canon expert on the island that I could speak to (thanks Nigel!) who kindly came and examined the camera for me. I knew virtually nothing about slr cameras having always had point-and-shoots until I got the Fujifilm S5800 bridge camera in 2007. In fact, I found the idea of changing lenses quite daunting.
The T50 had, unfortunately been stored with batteries in its compartment over the years so that had suffered some corrosion. But everything else was pronounced to be in good shape and probably usable if the battery compartment could be cleaned out properly so fresh batteries could be installed. There was a Tamron zoom lens which didn’t even fit the camera and a ‘doubler’ which was the same. They both went to the local Church Charity shop and I hope they are now giving another photographer good service.
So I was left with a T50 (hopefully working once cleaned up), a 50mm f1.8 prime lens(I think this was the one that came with the camera), a 28mm f2.8 prime lens (wide angle), a 244t t Speedlight flash and a sturdy but fairly heavy Hama tripod. These FD fit lenses no longer fit the EOS range of Canon cameras so they’ve become less desirable over the years. Unfortunately the new Micro 4/3 compact cameras CAN use Canon FD lenses with an adapter so they’ve started to become more desirable recently.
I cleaned out the T50, put in new batteries, pored over the manual, switched it on …. and it beeped at me! The narrow bit of bodywork surrounding the battery compartment door has split so I’ve had to put Sellotape on it to keep it shut and the batteries in place. But it does work 
As far as I can tell, the lenses are in good condition with no fungus or scratches and there’s a Hama Skylight filter in place on both of them.
Now I need to learn how to use it …..
I did take it on a short break to Lisbon in Portugal in December and took about 200 pictures with it. I’ll try and post some on Flickr soon.
