This Film Camera Has a Feature Digital Cameras Should Have

The EOS 3 was one of the last film cameras from Canon, and it brought with it a range of advanced and unique features that make it a great choice even today. This excellent video review takes a look at the camera and how it holds up in 2021. 

Coming to you from Benj Haisch, this awesome video review takes a look at the Canon EOS 3 film camera. The EOS 3 had a very unique and interesting feature: eye-controlled autofocus, which allowed the user to select an autofocus point simply by looking at it. As Haisch mentions, he does not use the eye-controlled autofocus much, but many photographers still laud it today for both its novelty and its generally decent performance. That being said, it is not perfect, but technology has advanced quite a bit since 1998, and I am willing to bet a modern implementation would be much more reliable, and I know my eye could move an autofocus point around the frame faster than I could move it with my thumb and the joystick. Even if you would not make use of that, the EOS 3 was one of Canon's last and most advanced film cameras, and it also uses the EF mount, so you can easily use all your full frame DSLR lenses on it seamlessly. If you are serious about film photography and looking for a camera that can keep up with professional demands, the EOS 3 is a great choice. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Haisch.

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Alex Cooke is a Cleveland-based portrait, events, and landscape photographer. He holds an M.S. in Applied Mathematics and a doctorate in Music Composition. He is also an avid equestrian.

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7 Comments

"...it is not perfect, but technology has advanced quite a bit since 1998"

It would be interesting to see how far something like this has advanced (surely someone is working on it!).

I would love to have a camera with this feature...as long as it works well!

You and me both!

Fingers crossed!

Meh. I'd rather have the old DEP mode. Not to be confused with ADEP on modern Canons.

I had a Canon Elan IIe back in the mid to late 90's, the eye-controlled autofocus worked great. Many years later, after I got into digital photography I researched various cameras and was surprised that this feature was no longer around. I thought "maybe it's just so commonplace that they don't even list it as a feature anymore?" - Nope, it's not around anymore.

Now, the mirrorless cameras and their plethora of focus points would make this really nice to have.

I begged Canon for this for years, to no avail. Panasonic's Touchpad AF is the next best thing, and one of the features I most appreciated when I switched to Micro Four Thirds.

I remember using the eye-controlled focus. Yeah, it would focus on whatever you were looking at! It didn't always work. But, it did a lot of the time. I wonder if this camera will foster the EOS R3?