The Canon camera that let you see everything and split the photography world In half!

For professional sports photographers (and a very few others) one of the big bugaboos with Single Lens Reflex cameras is the loss of the image during the precise moment that the photo is captured.

The Instant Return mirror (first used in the 1954 Asahiflex) really helped, but in 1965 Canon’s rather innovative solution was to use a fixed “pellicle” mirror, with a semi-transparent coating just 0.02mm thick, which transmitted 65% of the light to the film, and reflected 35% to the finder. It was replaced within a year by the Pellix QL, which used Canon’s Quick Load system for easier film loading, but was otherwise identical; so I’ll treat them here as the same camera..

While the fixed mirror meant that the photographer never lost sight of his subject, (s)he also had a camera that was harder to focus in dim light (remember, this was long before autofocus), having lost two-thirds of the light normally sent to the viewfinder. This was not helped by the fact that the Pellix used stop-down metering, which required the photographer to press a nicely-shaped self-timer lever towards the lens, to stop down the lens, enabling metering but also reducing the light in the viewfinder as the less aperture closed. In bright light, it worked well, but in dim light it made things even more difficult.

Similarly, exposures were longer, as a half stop was lost at the film plane thanks to the rest of the light being diverted to the viewfinder. This was offset somewhat, by not having any “Mirror Slap” – the vibration from the instant return mirror – making longer exposures easier to handhold and the camera somewhat quieter.

The Pellix was also equipped with metal foil shutter curtains, to prevent the sun burning a hole as can happen with standard, rubberized cloth shutters when not protected by a regular mirror. (Such damage is no laughing matter. Back in 1976, i managed to burn a hole in the shutter of his Leica CL rangefinder camera, while lingering just a few seconds too long when photographing a Caribbean sunset. As well as a large number of photographs ruined by a solid white line across the entire image, it was not an inexpensive repair!)

On the plus side, the pellicle mirror allowed use of deep-seated lenses, such as the FLP 38mm f/2.8 Compact "For Pellix Only" lens with rear elements extending deeper into the body than a normal mirror would allow. To compensate for the lost light, fast standard lenses (50mm c/1.4 and 58mm f/1.2) were commonly paired with the Pellix.

The Pellix was also featured TTL spot metering, using a 12% spot at the viewfinder center powered by a CdS cell. Though it was Canon’s first camera with TTL metering, it was still two years behind the Topcon RE Super (Super D in the USA) which metered at full aperture.

One unusual feature of both the Pellix and its F1 cousin was an eyepiece shutter to prevent stray light from fogging the film during exposure. Normally, the photographer’s eye would sufficiently block the eyepiece, but when used on a tripod it became necessary.

For the 1972 Olympics, Canon made a special high-speed model of the F-1 with a fixed pellicle mirror, which also allowed the user to always see the subject. But it was available only by special order to credentialed press photographers, and fewer than 100 were made. That version came equipped with a fixed motor drive (powered by an external battery pack taking 20 AA batteries), and was able to shoot up to nine frames per second, the highest speed of any motor-driven camera at the time.

There are things to think about if you’re considering a used Pellix. Unlike a regular SLR, dirt, dust, or damage to the thin pellicle mirror directly affects both the viewfinder and image quality, meaning extreme care is needed while changing lenses. For if the mirror is damaged, it must be replaced. At this age, the mirrors are often dirty and quite commonly yellowed or the semi-transparent coating is peeling off. I’d be surprised if Canon still has replacement pellicle mirrors for a 60-year-old camera of which only 111,000 were made.

Nikon also made small production runs of “High Speed” versions of their “F” (1971), “F2” (1978) and “F3” (1996) film cameras in order to get higher frame rates with no exposure blackout. These were all limited-run cameras for professionals, and somewhere between 30 and 54 of the Nikon F High-Speed were made. The F2 and F3 versions were likely larger runs but still under 100 cameras each and the problems with pellicle mirrors remained.

Curiously, in 2010 Sony released their SLT series of digital cameras. The SLT in the name stands for “Single Lens Translucent," a reference to the use of a fixed pellicle mirror. What looked to be a conventional pentaprism housed an electronic viewfinder (EVF) – essentially, a tiny, flat-screen TV, which displays the image from the digital sensor, thus avoiding the dimmer viewfinder of the Pellix. The mirror lets most of the light pass straight through to the sensor, while reflecting about 35% of the light up to a phase-detection auto-focus array housed in the top of the camera. This allowed continuous AF when taking videos. However, their mirrors suffer the same problems as the Pellix, and the SLT series was abandoned in 2016, in favour of a more standard mirrorless design.

The Pellix, and its counterparts by Nikon and Sony represent brave efforts to solve a problem that only a few photographers had in a way, with any luck, we won’t see again.

Find out more about photography's past in David Young's book, A Brief History of Photography.

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Take a look at the best film cameras you can buy today, and the best cameras for sports photography. You can also read other articles in David Young's Classic Cameras series.