Canon has officially announced that it will discontinue the sale and production of the EOS-1v. This would be the last film camera from the company. News of this latest development was first reported on PetaPixel. The EOS-1v was launched 18 years ago in 2000. However, Canon decided that the camera was no longer sustainable in a market where digital photography appears to have already taken over. As a result, Canon stopped the production of the EOS-1v at the beginning of 2010.
The company still had a lot of stock though so it had to make sure that the products were sold. It seems that this goal has now been achieved. The EOS-1v was a professional 35mm SLR camera. It was the very first 5th generation SLR camera from Canon. In fact, its main body design became the basis for the design of future cameras by the company. For instance, the EOS-1D, one of the most popular cameras from Canon replicated the same body design as the EOS-1v.
Canon also confirmed that the EOS-1v will be retired. A statement on the company’s website thanked customers for their continued loyalty towards Canon products. The statement added that the company had decided to end the sales for EOS-1v, a film single lens reflex camera. However, repairs for existing Canon E0S-1vs will be available for now. The company will stop repairs for the existing units on October 31st, 2025. Canon also said that depending on the existing inventory of parts, requests for repairs may be denied after 2020.
Film cameras have been struggling to compete with digital cameras in the last few years. The Canon EOS-1v was considered as one of the best and most successful film cameras globally but this is the end of the road. Most analysts think that the fate of the EOS-1v was inevitable but even then, this is not the end of film cameras, at least not yet. Nikon, a leading Japanese camera manufacturer, is selling two popular film cameras under its collection. The Nikon F6 and the FM10 have been in the market for quite a while now. There’s no indication at the moment that could suggest that Nikon could follow Canon in retiring the cameras.
The specific details as to why Canon decided to end sales for the EOS-1v are not clear. The statement released by the company announcing this decision was very simple and with very little information. Presumably, a full length explanation may be released in the coming weeks. But it’s very likely that the company felt that the production of film cameras was no longer viable in the current market.
Film cameras definitely have their appeal and despite their traditional film mechanism, they are quite advanced in many ways even today. At the moment, people who still want to have a film camera will have to make do with the Nikon products.
