Canon 35mm
Katie and I had brought our kids up to Lac Du Flambeau Wisconsin to visit my family. Lac Du Flambeau is the Native Reservation in north central WI. My family rents a cabin every year up there and I’ve been going up ever since I was a kid. So, my folks were there fishing.
We brought the kids there to fish and swim. They always will want to hang out with their Meema and Pupa. On one of the evenings, Katie’s birthday, I took Katie into town for dinner. After we hit up the Casino and tried out luck in slots. We were hitting it big on the nickel slots! In fact we may have came out ahead one whole dollar. We didn't want to stay long just enough time to experience the Casino vibe. With the weather being a mid August evening, sunny, warm, and calm. We decided to go for a walk and see what else is in town. We did find an antique shop and thought lets check it out.
In this shop we found any old tool you could think of. Most likely from children of the parents who passed away and the children were needing to clean out their barn. Old bar mirrors and signs, this is Wisconsin so that tracks. And boxes of old Playboy magazines dating back to the 1970’s and 80’s. Within all of this I say two cameras. The first one was an old Kodak camera. It was made of plastic and something I remember from when I was a kid. Nothing fancy, but had a purpose at one time. The other was a Canon camera in a leather case. I picked it up, could not see what type of camera it was but it felt heavy. Opened the case and found a Canon FT 35mm camera with a 50mm lens on it. I twisted the lens and could see the aperture blades move inside. This was cool. I had no idea if it worked or not. It was at an antique shop so probably something that would look cool on a shelf in a coffee shop. I looked at Katie and she took it from my hands and brought it to the register. She didn’t care what it cost, she was going to get it no matter what. I’m always a little indecisive with things like that. The guy behind the register looked at it and said, fifteen bucks sound good? Yes, we’ll take it.
I brought the camera back to the cabin and so giddy I inspected it. I looked at every little aspect of it. Every button I clicked, every lever I moved and I gave it a good inspection. I did find that the film door has a felt like gasket material that was deteriorating. I have no idea if that is a major issue for the camera or not. So when I was back home I brought it to a camera shop. They weren’t sure if I’d get light leaks in the film or ruin the roll of film. So, the only option is to get a roll and take some shots.
I took the cheapest roll, which was what I was shooting most at the time, and snapped a roll off in a few hours. Took it in to get processed and got an email with the scans. When I opened the email and found twenty four exposures, in color, that had that 35mm grain to it. I was pumped. This was so exciting to have a old, and new to me, vintage camera. I’ve used this camera for several years not and it has given me some really cool shots, memories and stories.