Canon New F-1

The film photographs on this site come from a Canon New F-1, the professional 35mm SLR Canon released in 1981. Collectors write its name half a dozen ways — New F-1, F-1N, nF-1, F1n — to separate it from the original F-1 of 1971. It is a dense, largely mechanical machine: interchangeable finders, a shutter that keeps firing without batteries, and Canon's FD lenses in front of it.

It shoots whatever film it is fed. Here that means Kodak Tri-X pushed for grain and shadow, Portra and Kodak Gold and UltraMax for color, Fujifilm stocks when the light asks for them. Every frame is developed, then scanned. The negative is the capture; the scan is the print.

Film photography is the forgotten method now in resurgence — the way nearly every photograph was made for a century, become a deliberate choice. On a mechanical camera there is no preview and no second try, only the discipline of the frame. That discipline is what these photographs are made of.

35mm SLR · FD mount · 1981 · Tri-X, Portra, Gold, UltraMax, Fujifilm