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2026-08-06 A Bag Of Canon T70 Equipment Part I of III

    When you are a “Bottom feeder” collector, your collecting is guided by what is offered to you while making sure it is under your spending limits. Here is an example of how this works in practice. I happened to be in a Value Village on a 30% off for seniors Tuesday where I found a camera bag filled with a Canon T70 with Canon 50mm, 28mm lenses, a 80-200mm f/4.5 Tokina zoom, a 277T flash and 52 & 55 mm Polarizers (all priced for $49.95). The final deciding touch is I had a Gift Card burning a hole in my pocket. So obviously I picked the lot up. 
    Then later the same day I managed to buy—
  • a Tokina SD* 28-70 f/3.5-4.5 zoom




  • a Tokina SD* 70-210 f/4-5.6 zoom with a UV filter and caps**






  • a Canon Remote Control 60 (cm) T3 in box with instructions
    Paying $5 for each. So I neatly spent my original savings at Value Village for the additional goodies. That alone makes it a successful day of collecting in my opinion!
It turned out I had already collected a Canon T70 complete with Canon 50mm lens and (again) a Tokina zoom back in 2014. I am trying to sell myself on duplicating the camera because—
  • all of the items I just collected fit in the bag the camera came in


  • I got an additional brochure on the T70, as well as manuals on the camera and lenses
  • I have never had a Canon remote cable for a T70*** 
The other thing that is really fun about the T70 is how agreeable it is battery wise. Slap two AA batteries into the camera and it springs to life. It is a real pleasure to have a camera so undemanding!

That raised bezel with the red dot on the lower left of the front takes the remote control socket. 












    The top controls are pretty easy to puzzle out. The camera on its own takes an average meter reading (marked AVERAGE) but you can move the slider to the next detent and get a center weighted meter reading. That can be held with either the shutter release partially depressed or the meter button on the front of the camera.    The next detent is the electronic SELF-TIMER. The next set of buttons—Mode changes the Program for Tele, Norm and Wide and a manual mode where you set the aperture and the camera sets the shutter speed. The ISO button sets the film speed. The BC checks the battery power and shows a segmented battery on the display screen. The UP and Down buttons change the settings.
 
The back has a clip to hold the film carton end. Note the large ribbed pad for your thumb.








    
    The Canon 277T flash slides on the hotshoe. The wide panel is installed (it is the red plastic at the top).















    You set the film’s ISO at the top and then have a choice of the PROGRAM setting or manually choosing a F/number (using the white button). The lower slider is the flash on/off. The red button lights when the flash is charged.













    
Here is the flash front without the wide panel clipped on.














The flash as well as the wide panel fit in this case.




















    Hidden under the strap shoulder pad is a small chunk of rubber you can pry out.
If you remove the large rubber surround to the viewfinder you can slide the small chunk over the window. This is necessary for times your eye isn’t covering the window when the meter reading is being taken.

*Tokina SD zoom lenses have red rings around the front to indicate “Special low-Dispersion” elements.
**Here is a comparison in size of the 70-210 f/4.5 Tokina zoom  


I bought with the original deal (on right) and the Tokina SD 70-210 f/4-5.6. Because of their push-pull zooms, their actual length may not be accurate. 
    And while we are examining lenses for the Canon T70 I dug up this 200mm f/3.5 (on left) 


next to the 80-200 f/4.5 Tokina zoom. The single focal length 200mm lens can only focus down to 2.3 m (7.6 feet), while the 80-200 f/4.5 Tokina zoom can focus as close as 1.3 m (4.25 feet) at 80mm: giving a 1:9 ratio at about 100mm and 1:4 ratio when zoomed to 200mm. All ratios from 1:4 to 1:9 are marked.

*** did you know there are more than one way to have a remote cable for the T70? Canon made an electrical switch plug-in for the T70 that you screw a regular cable release into. Wow!
 

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