Return to Answer

Although anecdotal, my personal experience has been that the latter is more often the case than the former. Instructors typically require this because it is impossible to tell from the images captured if a film camera was used in fully manual operation or if one of the automatic modes were used to produced the photographs a student submits for an assignment.

You need to check with the course instructor for a clarification on this point. All of the cameras you have listed in the question would meet the conditions of the first option above but one of the three you list would not meet the requirements of the second.

When buying any older film camera you should verify that it operates correctly and doesn't have any light leaks that could fog loaded film. You need to include time to do this no matter which camera you wind up buying. It just goes with the territory of buying used film cameras. Good reputable sources for used camera gear are national retailers such as B&H and Adorama, as well a KEH who specializes in used gear only.

The Pentax K 1000 is a manual exposure only camera. You'll likely find lenses for the Pentax 'K' mount more easily than for the Canon FD mount.

The Pentax K1000 is considered by many to be the archetypal "student" camera. I've actually seen a few course syllabi back in the 1990s where the K1000 was one of a very short list or even the only acceptable camera for the course. The examples made in Japan or Hong Kong between 1976 and 1990 are all metal. The ones made in China between 1990-97 have a plastic lid and bottom plate. All versions have a rubberized cloth horizontal shutter. The same LR44 batteries mentioned above required to operate the K1000's light meter are still readily available at major retail outlets. Without a battery everything except the light meter still works and photos can still be taken at every available aperture and shutter time setting. 'K' mount lenses are also very plentiful on the used market.

If she's allowed to have some auto-exposure capability the Canon AE-1 would be a good choice. If she must have a manual only camera the K1000 is hard to argue against but the Nikon FM2 is also very good. You can get LR44 batteries for all of them at Walmart, Dollar General, CVS, etc. Used K-mount and F-mount lenses are plentiful and affordable.

From the way you describe the course expectations, it sounds like you probably don't need to worry about this. Others with similar questions might. Although anecdotal, my personal experience has been that the latter is more often the case than the former. Instructors typically require this because it is impossible to tell from the images captured if a film camera was used in fully manual operation or if one of the automatic modes were used to produced the photographs a student submits for an assignment.

You could check with the course instructor for a clarification on this point. All of the cameras you have listed in the question would meet the conditions of the first option above but one of the three you list would not meet the requirements of the second.

When buying any older film camera you should verify that it operates correctly and doesn't have any light leaks that could fog loaded film. You need to include time to do this no matter which camera you wind up buying. It just goes with the territory of buying used film cameras. Good reputable sources for used camera gear are national retailers such as B&H and Adorama, as well as KEH who specializes in used gear only.

The Pentax K1000 is a manual exposure only camera. You'll likely find lenses for the Pentax 'K' mount more easily than for the Canon FD mount.

The Pentax K1000 is considered by many to be the archetypal "student" camera. I've actually seen a few course syllabi back in the 1990s where the K1000 was one of a very short list or even the only acceptable camera for the course. The examples made in Japan or Hong Kong between 1976 and 1990 are all metal. The ones made in China between 1990-97 have a plastic lid and bottom plate. All versions have a rubberized cloth horizontal shutter. The same readily available LR44 batteries mentioned above are required to operate the K1000's light meter. Without a battery everything except the light meter still works and photos can still be taken at every available aperture and shutter time setting.

If she's allowed to have some auto-exposure capability the Canon AE-1 would be a good choice. If she must have a manual only camera the K1000 is hard to argue against but the Nikon FM2 is also very good. You can get LR44 batteries for all of them at Walmart, Dollar General, CVS, etc. Used K-mount and F-mount lenses are plentiful and affordable. FD lenses are also still fairly easy to find, though not quite to the extent of the K-mount or F-mount.

The Pentax K1000 is considered by many to be the archetypal "student" camera. I've actually seen a few course silybi back in the 1990s where the K1000 was one of a very short list or even the only acceptable camera for the course. The examples made in Japan or Hong Kong between 1976 and 1990 are all metal. The ones made in China between 1990-97 have a plastic lid and bottom plate. All versions have a rubberized cloth horizontal shutter. The same LR44 batteries mentioned above required to operate the K1000's light meter are still readily available at major retail outlets. Without a battery everything except the light meter still works and photos can still be taken at every available aperture and shutter time setting. 'K' mount lenses are also very plentiful on the used market.

The Pentax K1000 is considered by many to be the archetypal "student" camera. I've actually seen a few course syllabi back in the 1990s where the K1000 was one of a very short list or even the only acceptable camera for the course. The examples made in Japan or Hong Kong between 1976 and 1990 are all metal. The ones made in China between 1990-97 have a plastic lid and bottom plate. All versions have a rubberized cloth horizontal shutter. The same LR44 batteries mentioned above required to operate the K1000's light meter are still readily available at major retail outlets. Without a battery everything except the light meter still works and photos can still be taken at every available aperture and shutter time setting. 'K' mount lenses are also very plentiful on the used market.

You need to check with the course instructor for a clarification on this point. All of the cameras you have listed in the question would meet the conditions of the first option above but two of the three you list would not meet the requirements of the second.

When buying any older film camera you should verify that it operates correctly and doesn't have any light leaks that could fog loaded film. You need to include time to do this no matter which camera you wind up buying. It just goes with the territory of buying used film cameras.

The AE-1/AE-1P are powered by either a single 6V 4SR44 battery (various manufacturers have different numbers for it) or by 4 1.5V LR44 batteries. The LR44 button cells are still fairly common and relatively inexpensive. Major brick and mortar retailers sell them as they are used in a wide variety of devices from meat thermometers to wristwatches. The single 6V varieties are mostly carried only by specialty camera stores but are fairly easy to find online. Without batteries the AE-1/AE-1P are not operable. The horizontal cloth shutter curtains of the AE-1/AE-1P have not aged quite as well as the vertical travel metal shutters found on other cameras. Of note is that the AE-1/AE-1P offered shutter priority auto-exposure but not aperture priority AE at a time when most AE cameras were the opposite - they offered aperture priority but not shutter priority. The only way to manually select the aperture with an AE-1/AE-1P is to use manual exposure mode. Having said all of that, there are plenty of AE-1 bodies around in good working order.

The Nikon FM2 is a manual exposure only camera. Nikon F-mount lenses compatible with the FM2 are also plentiful, though one must be careful because although they will mount on older F-mount film cameras, newer types of F-mount lenses introduced from around the year 2000 will not be fully functional with the older F-mount film cameras.

From Wikipedia:

The FM2 accepts all Nikon F bayonet mount lenses that support the Automatic Indexing (AI) feature introduced in 1977. The Nikon-made AI lenses of this type are the AF-S Nikkor, AF-I Nikkor, AF Nikkor D, AF Nikkor, Nikkor AI-S, Nikkor AI and Nikon Series E lenses (not to be confused with the more recent electronic AF Nikkor E type Nikkor lenses). Nikon’s most recent 35mm film SLR lenses, the AF Nikkor G type (introduced in 2000) and the AF Nikkor DX type (2003) will mount but will not function properly.

The Pentax K 1000 is a manual exposure only camera. You'll likely find lenses for the Pentax 'K' mount more easily than for the Canon FT mount.

If she's allowed to have some auto-exposure capability the Canon AE-1 would be a good choice. If she must have a manual only camera the K1000 is hard to argue against but the Nikon FM2 is also very good. You can get LR44 batteries for all of them at Walmart. Used K-mount and F-mount lenses are plentiful and affordable.

Most film cameras leave the aperture setting to a ring on the lens, rather than placing it on the camera body. If a camera has automatic modes where the camera selects the aperture, the lens will have an "A" (for Auto) or similarly named position on the aperture ring that allows the camera to set the aperture via a mechanical linkage.

For after the course:

Even if she decides she wants to ultimately shoot with film, shooting with a slightly older used digital camera is a faster and more economical way to learn many of the fundamentals of photography, including exposure, composition, technique, and how using different focal lengths, apertures, shutter times, etc. will affect the resulting image than starting out with a film camera would be. This is particularly the case when one might not be sure if any problems one might see in one's earliest images are the result of user error or of camera malfunction.

You need to check with the course instructor for a clarification on this point. All of the cameras you have listed in the question would meet the conditions of the first option above but one of the three you list would not meet the requirements of the second.

When buying any older film camera you should verify that it operates correctly and doesn't have any light leaks that could fog loaded film. You need to include time to do this no matter which camera you wind up buying. It just goes with the territory of buying used film cameras. Good reputable sources for used camera gear are national retailers such as B&H and Adorama, as well a KEH who specializes in used gear only.

The AE-1/AE-1P are powered by either a single 6V 4SR44 battery (various manufacturers have different numbers for it) or by 4 1.5V LR44 batteries. The LR44 button cells are still fairly common and relatively inexpensive. Major brick and mortar retailers sell them as they are used in a wide variety of devices from meat thermometers to wristwatches. The single 6V varieties are mostly carried only by specialty camera stores but are fairly easy to find online. Without batteries the AE-1/AE-1P are not operable. The horizontal cloth shutter curtains of the AE-1/AE-1P have not aged quite as well as the vertical travel metal shutters found on some other film cameras from the same era, but there are still many around that are in great shape. Of note is that the AE-1/AE-1P offered shutter priority auto-exposure but not aperture priority AE at a time when most AE cameras were the opposite - they offered aperture priority but not shutter priority. The only way to manually select the aperture with an AE-1/AE-1P is to use manual exposure mode. On the other hand, one could fully control the shutter speed and let the camera calculate the needed aperture.

The Nikon FM2 is a manual exposure only camera. Nikon F-mount lenses compatible with the FM2 are also plentiful, though one must be careful because although they will mount on older F-mount film cameras, some newer types of F-mount lenses introduced from around the year 2000 will not be fully functional with the older F-mount film cameras.

From Wikipedia (italics added):

The FM2 accepts all Nikon F bayonet mount lenses that support the Automatic Indexing (AI) feature introduced in 1977. The Nikon-made AI lenses of this type are the AF-S Nikkor, AF-I Nikkor, AF Nikkor D, AF Nikkor, Nikkor AI-S, Nikkor AI and Nikon Series E lenses (not to be confused with the more recent electronic AF Nikkor E type Nikkor lenses). Nikon’s most recent 35mm film SLR lenses, the AF Nikkor G type (introduced in 2000) and the AF Nikkor DX type (2003) will mount but will not function properly.

The Pentax K 1000 is a manual exposure only camera. You'll likely find lenses for the Pentax 'K' mount more easily than for the Canon FD mount.

If she's allowed to have some auto-exposure capability the Canon AE-1 would be a good choice. If she must have a manual only camera the K1000 is hard to argue against but the Nikon FM2 is also very good. You can get LR44 batteries for all of them at Walmart, Dollar General, CVS, etc. Used K-mount and F-mount lenses are plentiful and affordable.

The large control dial on the AE-1 is the shutter speed control. The ASA (ISO setting is incorporated into this dial and visible through a small window in the dial. As mentioned above, the AE-1/AE-1P was a "shutter priority" (Tv or S mode on your digital) camera at a time when most semi-automatic cameras were "aperture priority" (Av or A mode on your digital camera).

Most film cameras leave the aperture setting to a ring on the lens, rather than placing it on the camera body. If a camera has automatic modes where the camera selects the aperture, the lens will have an "A" (for Auto) or similarly named position on the aperture ring that allows the camera to set the aperture via a mechanical linkage.

For after the course:

Even if she decides she wants to ultimately shoot with film, shooting with a slightly older used digital camera is a faster and more economical way to improve with many of the fundamentals of photography, including exposure, composition, technique, and how using different focal lengths, apertures, shutter times, etc. will affect the resulting image than starting out with a film camera would be. This is particularly the case when one might not be sure if any problems one might see in one's earliest images are the result of user error or of camera malfunction.