Thursday, April 08, 2004

Canon FD website

A few months ago I ran across Christian Rollinger's Canon FD Documentation project and was amazed again at the potential for the World-Wide Web. For 5 years now, he's been gathering scans of owner's manuals, repair manuals and the like for the Canon FD line of cameras, lenses and accessories from the 70's and 80's. These include the almost indestructable F-1 that was a staple on sporting event sidelines for decades and the A-1 that I use, which was recently named one of the 50 most important cameras in history. Given the number of used F-1s, A-1s, AE-1s and T-series cameras still available on eBay and real (not Wolf or Ritz) camera stores, it's an indespensible resource. But I think it further demonstrates the potential power of the Internet as a storehouse of searchable, free knowledge - a power that often gets overlooked as the Internet gets more press as a commercial vehicle or a big porn shop or a place for people like me to vent my spleen or the death of the recording and film industry. Oh, and did I mention that it's ad-free? Very cool.

1 Comments:

At 5:48 PM, Blogger Unknown said...

Hi Tony, The Canon FD Documentory site is indeed wonderful but It's down for repair at the moment.
Talking about radioactive ramblings and halflife,and FD, I have the rare FD 35mm f2 Thorium lens that the Japanese government stopped Canon making because of health risks to the workers, the one with the concave front element, It's a great lens but Thorium has a halflife of about 70.000 years, where can I buy some lead lined boxer shorts ?

 

Post a Comment

<< Home