This is another bargain camera..wait for it…I got it for 99p. It came without a lens, but I had a couple of Canon kit lenses lying around. I was very surprised to be the winning bidder as I just put the starting bid on to keep it on my watch list and then forgot about it. Even with the postage charges, it still cost less than a roll of film.
When it arrived, I still had the Canon EOS 300 and I was struck by the similarities. In fact, they were so similar that I ended up giving the EOS 300 away to a student who was just getting into film. The comment section on this post says the difference is the lack of a depth of field preview and the lack of a cable release port, but if you look at the photos you will see the latter does exist. Both the 300 and 3000 are entry level SLRs and probably the cheapest EOSs you can get. You can find all the 3000 technical details you want on Canon’s own site.
I put a 28-80mm lens on mine, loaded it with Fuji Industrial 100 and took it along to Blackpool for the day. The lightness of the camera combined with the autofocus, made it a delight to use all day. There are so many functions that you could really go to town with this camera. The price means you don’t have to worry about damage either. There are so many for sale on the bay right now, most for less than £20, without a lens of course. As for me, I mainly kept it on automatic to see how it would perform.
Here are some of the results from that roll.
On that trip, I met up with some friends one of whom had a few cameras for me to try. These included the Photosniper and the Minolta 7000i. In one of the cameras I picked up was an unused film, or it looked unused anyway. I had no idea how long it had been in the camera, how it had been stored or whether it had been used. As this camera worked so well, I decided to use it as my next film and see what came out. I didn’t want to use it for anything I could not recreate later and ended up using it in my garden and local nature park.
It was kind of annoying to see such great results, but I still would not have trusted the film with anything else. But, hey what a super camera. Who cares if it is the bottom of the line, it works great. Put a fancy lens on this camera and I swear you would not tell it apart from a top of the range version.
Here is another review by someone else who loves this camera.
I love cheap and cheerful cameras like this. Nice work with yours.
Me too, they make me very happy.
“It was kind of annoying to see such great results” … Never heard a good photographer diss her own work like that!
Even acknowledging that these plastic fantastic late-generation film SLRs were built hardly more rugged than single-use cameras, I still marvel at the current price they command. These cameras retailed for US$200 with a kit zoom when they were introduced. and now you find one for under US$2. A rare case where the American throw-away mentality comes back to benefit us!
Ha, I didn’t think I did diss it, I thought I was saying they were good. That’s what I meant. It was annoying to see the good results when I expect to see nothing at all. It is annoying that these cameras can be found for less than a single use camera when there is an issue to plastic. But then you have to buy a lens.