2026-05-16 Canon Prima SHOT Camera

The Canon Prima SHOT was released on October of 1988. The same camera was released as the Autoboy Prisma in Japan and as the SureShot Ace in America.

The Prima had two world firsts—

it has a waist level finder built into the top as well as a conventional eye-level viewfinder
it was the first camera that came with an infrared remote control

The remote was attached to one end of the body.

Pressing a release on the camera’s bottom let you slide the remote out.

The remote has a transparent case.

The recess for the remote was custom sculptured for the remote’s contours.

View from the top

Somehow they managed to combine the waist level viewer with the eye-level viewfinder.

While from the front the viewfinder can be seen as straight through with the waist level viewfinder centered above it.

In a view of the bottom (from the left) you have—

the release for the remote
the “tilt” widget that when rotated cams out a wedge to tilt the camera backwards. This is useful when the camera is placed on a flat surface but the camera has to tilt up to frame the subject)
a tripod socket
and finally the 2CR5 battery compartment

The camera has auto dX indexing for films from ISO 50-1600. With ISO 100 film the exposure is set from EV-9.5 (f/3.5—40 sec) to EV-17 (f/32—125 sec). At ISO 100 its flash has a Guide Number of 9 (meters).

   The camera can be prefocused using its near-infrared triangulation system.
   The camera has a selftimer. It’s frame counter counts up as exposures are made and counts back down as the film rewinds. Loading, advancing and rewinding are all motorized. The camera can take one frame every 0.6 seconds.
   The camera does not have a cable release because it doesn’t need one. The remote control can do anything a cable release can do!

All the description so far doesn’t fully convey how special this camera is in your hands. The sculptured body form, placement of the shutter release and seamless automation makes the Canon Prima SHOT a fine addition to a collection.

The Canon Prima SHOT is 139 x 76 x 50 mm.
It has a 35mm f/3.5 lens (three elements in three groups).
It weighs 335 g with the battery installed.

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