Canon’s long history has many firsts dotted across the company’s innovations, but one of the most striking is arguably the Canon AE-1. Introduced in 1976, the Canon AE-1 had a plastic rather than metal build, but it was a risky move that paid off. The Canon AE-1, which was also one of the first SLR cameras to feature a shutter priority mode, became one of the company’s top-selling cameras and is still popular with film enthusiasts today. But, I think the Canon AE-1 and the risks that it took feels perfectly poised to inspire a modern equivalent.
Retro-styled cameras are resurging in popularity so much that the old-school cameras with modern digital innards are hard to find in stock. Canon has been rumored to be working on its own take on the trend. When Digital Camera World interviewed a Canon executive, the prospect wasn’t discredited – and Manabu Kato, group executive of Canon's Imaging Business Operations, even said that his personal favorite would be the Canon AE-1. So why a retro Canon is still fodder for rumor mills, I hope it's because there's some fire to the smoke.
