2026-09-11 Canon FT Body

This Canon FT Body was damaged when purchased. Someone had twisted the lens so violently part of the lens aperture linkage had bent the mirror baffel. Trying to mount a Tokina zoom (admittedly a Canon FD mount that should fit the camera built for FL lenses) failed.The seller demonstrated a Canon brand lens would mount. Since being straightened and touched up with black paint the camera’s mount has worked fine with the aforementioned zoom lens.

The camera had a flat PX-625A battery. The Canon FT doesn’t need the battery to work, just to measure exposure.
The shutter speeds all work except for 1 sec. Triggering the shutter at the 1 sec setting is a really strange experience. The mirror goes up and the shutter opens. Shortly after that the camera starts buzzing as the slow speed escapement times out about 2 sec. Then the shutter closes as the mirror slaps down. The shutter speed dial set to ½ second sounds more like a second. By ¼ sec everything seems to be as it should.
Introduced in March of 1966, the Canon FT was one of three cameras Canon introduced around the same time.

The Canon FX had a built-in meter, using a window in the camera’s front. The next camera was the Canon FP with no built-in meter. Then the Canon FT QL was introduced with through-the-lens metering. It was introduced to counter the Pentax Spotmatic cameras, as well as the Topcon RE.

Features of the Canon FT included—

mirror lock up
1000-1 sec shutter
flash sync at 60 sec
self timer
semi-spot meter metering
the “QL” (quick load) system—which facilitated changing films mid-roll without losing a frame
the Canon Booster—worked only with Pellix and the FT—boasted meter sensitivity 16x

Changes were made to various components and cosmetically to lettering and the placement of the serial number over the years of production.When it was introduced it’s cost—compared to 2019 dollars—was US$2010.
Production of the FT ceased when the Canon FTb was introduced in 1972.

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