Recently a subscriber to my YouTube channel reached out in follow up to my video on the Pentax PC35AF with the offer to borrow his Canon Autoboy Prisma. If you’re like me, you’ve never heard of this 35mm film point and shoot before. And that makes sense, given most of what this camera lacks. It’s a fairly typical cheap film camera. A plasticky build, not to great lens, and no manual controls. But there’s a twist – it has two viewfinders. One eye-level one on the rear, and another on the top for waist level shooting. Yep, that got me interested as well.
Canon Autoboy Prisma
The Canon Prisma Autoboy was released under several names depending on where it was sold. The Canon Sure Shot Ace, Canon Prima Shot, or Canon Autoboy Prisma sold in Japan. But they are all the same camera with different text on the top, with the one standout feature being the waist level viewfinder.
Besides that feature, the camera is a fairly typical automatic 35mm point and shoot. It features autofocus, auto exposure and auto film winding. There’s no way to adjust exposure settings manually, or even see what settings the camera chooses for that matter.
The body is comfortable to hold and larger than most compact 35mm point and shoots. This is probably in part both to the addition of the waist level viewfinder and a built-in removable remote control on the side of the camera.
The 35mm f3.5 lens
The Canon Autoboy Prisma features a 35mm f3.5 lens. This isn’t particularly exciting, and indeed the lens performs subpar in my experience. At some aperture the lens becomes quite a bit sharper in the center and improves the edges dramatically, but without manual controls you will have no choice but to accept whatever the camera chooses for you.
If you are shooting in daylight settings with fast film you should be reasonably happy with the images. It was only in lower light situations where I am assuming the lens chose it’s widest aperture that I noticed the worst image quality.
Waist level viewfinder
The real treat of this camera is of course the waist level viewfinder. This is a feature typically found in much more premium cameras. And while it’s not nearly as bright or large as it would be on a nicer camera, it does work pretty good and is a blast to use. I found myself shooting in landscape orientation just as an excuse to use it.
The viewing angle is a little unforgiving – that is, you need to be almost directly over it to get a clear image – but that’s to be expected. It worked in indoors and outdoors lighting just fine. You won’t be able to confirm autofocus through this finder, but that may not be as big of a deal as you think.
Check out this video to see the viewfinder in action.
Autofocus
It’s worth mentioning that I had a really tough time with the autofocus on this camera. Almost all my shots were focused to infinity regardless of the position of the subject. This could have been user error clicking the shutter before focus had actually been confirmed, but I am not sure. This is not an issue I have had on other film point and shoots.
Perhaps a silver lining from this is that your focus will almost always be on infinity, meaning in bright light with fast film this would probably work as a street photography camera in a pinch.
Video review
Here’s my video review of the Canon Autoboy Prisma that shows off the exterior of the camera and the waist level viewfinder in action.
Sample pics
See more sample pictures taken on the Canon Autoboy Prisma in the flickr album below.
