Popular photography magazine in its May 1985 edition, found here, sums up the Canon T80 with the following words:
“The Canon T80 is a five-way programmed, auto-exposure, auto-load, motor-drive 35mm SLR with three dedicated autofocusing lenses, for people who want good images but don’t care about f-stops and shutter speeds”
What more can I say? Well…
The five program modes, which you can see in the image above in the LCD display include: Program mode – where the camera makes all the decisions leaving you to point , focus and shoot. Then working from left to right you have Deep Focus mode – for when you want front to back sharpness, the camera will presumably choose the smallest aperture. Stop Action mode – when you want fast shutter speeds. Next up Shallow mode – when you want to blur the background but have foreground sharp as when your taking a portrait of someone. Finally Flowing mode – for motion blur when taking images of moving objects like cars or animals for example. What’s interesting about flowing mode is that you get a selection of shutter speeds that range from 1/15th through to 1/125th. So you could regard this mode as a limited shutter priority mode. Cool! Selecting any of the modes is done with the Mode button on the left and the slider switch to the left of the shutter button.
Another cool thing about the T80, there is no DX coding of film speed. Rather you get to select the film speed. ☺️ From the stand point of 2022 that is good news because it means you get to use out of date film and select an appropriate film speed for it or you can choose to ‘push’ or ‘pull’ your in date film. So this camera becomes a more desirable option than similar ‘beginners’ models from other camera manufacturers that only seem to offer automatic DX coding of your film.
Additionally while being an autofocus camera, with only three lenses available, it will take Canon FD lenses which have to use stop down metering and of course manual focusing.
Above, Remote control socket.
Camera lock, On and self timer buttons along with motor film rewind slider button.
No fiddly battery compartment on the base of the T80. Rather push the central button and twist open allowing you to place the four AAA batteries that power all the cameras functions.
So, Canons first autofocus camera starts to become an attractive option. Particularly if you have one or more of the three autofocus lenses that were released with the camera and want to try an early auto focusing system from Canon.
My T80 came with the AF 35-70, sadly not working in autofocus mode. However the lens can be used in manual focus mode with auto focus assist, where the camera will beep to tell when you have achieved focus. To this end there are two cut outs in the front of the lens that allow you to turn the focus, you can see one in the image above.
To the right of the red dot you can see a exposure compensation button that will reduce the shutter speed by 1 1/2 steps. Limited but nonetheless useful.
The AF 35-70mm lens does sport a very useful macro mode that allows you to get surprisingly close to your subject.
Here is a video tour around the camera, click on the image below.
I had a couple of part used and expired colour films to use for my outing with the T80. I chose a rather inclement day to visit one of my favourite local locations. The upside was that very few people were around to hear my conversations with my T80🤪
Due to the light and the fact I was holding umbrella in one hand and the camera in the other, I found myself using Shallow focus mode most of the time.
The images with the AF 35-70mm lens have come out rather soft, even in the area I focused on.
As in the image above I achieved focus with the camera providing the audible bleep, but it doesn’t look very sharp.
However other images are fine. 🤔
Weird how the purple cast of the out of date film is limited to the top and bottom of the frame??
Although the camera and lens combination weigh very nearly 2lbs or 900g, the ergonomics are good. Even with umbrella in on hand and the other holding the camera I found I could easily focus the lens and take the image. The AF 35-70mm lens seemed a little to inconsistant in its sharpness. Then again it could have been me, moving at the moment of pressing the shutter button.
I would be interested in seeing how a Canon FD lens would perform with this camera.
In summary. Yes a basic camera with few ‘bells and whistles.’ But the ones it does have make it interesting to use, particularly if you have a working AF lens.
arhphotographic 