Heres a purchase related query - whats the deal with Canon Film EOS cameras?
I've steered clear of Canon. For some reason they just don't have the attraction of other manufacturers in-spite of pushing the technical boundaries in the the film & digital world.
However I've noticed some EOS-1n and 2n cameras appearing for relatively little. What is their Nikon equivalent? I see the 1n was a '94 era camera and the 2n (5 in some markets) was a little later. Would they be the equivalent of the Nikon F5 and F100?
How fast do EOS lenses focus on these film bodies?
I know the Nikon motorised lenses work pretty well on my F100, is that the case with EOS film-bodies?
Is the eye-detect AF a gimmick or does it actually work (you don't hear much about it on their digital bodies so I guess they dropped it)?
No such thing as a 2n, so I am assuming you probably mean the EOS 3, which had the eye-detect feature. None of the EOS 1 variants had it. The A2e and several of the Elans had it as well.
The EOS 1 variants were the equivalent of the contemporary Nikon F series (F4, F5 and F6). There are three variants of the EOS 1: 1, 1n, and 1v.
The EOS 3 was a very well featured camera, probably equivalent to a Nikon F100. I could not say about the EOS 1, but EF lenses focus quite swiftly on any of the others. In particular, I believe the EOS 3 had 45 focus points, which was quite impressive when it came out.
The eye-detect AF is anything but a gimmick. The camera focuses where you look as if by magic. I have never quite understood why this technology did not make it to any of Canon's digital bodies.
Cheers,
Antonio