Produced in Japan from April 1976 to 1984, this is still a highly collectable camera. Has a cloth focal plane shutter that is electronically controlled. This cloth shutter limits the max shutter speed. It wasn't until Canon introduced the T-50 with its vertically travelling metal blade shutter that flash sync speeds increased.
The Canon AE-1  it was the first microprocessor CPU-equipped SLR. :-) is has a shutter speeds 2 s to 1/1000 s. This was an amateur level camera.




In 1971, the first of the new FD mounted cameras was introduced. The professional level F-1. It was avaliable from  March 1971 until 1976 when they did a mid update to the F1-n. With the motor drive the camera is able to shoot up to 9 frame per second. Still the highest speed of any motor driven camera at the time and most digital cameras today. Of course this needs 20 AA batteries ACK!!!!There was a NiCad version but.. they are still over $150 on ebay. There was a 1976 Olympics version but the only thing that is different is the olympic symbol.
I have put the F-1n differences from Wikipedia on a previous post.

In 1981, there was a NEW F-1 produced. My Naval camera is one such camera. THis was also in my previous post.

The Canon FT QL. My body has Code is O so  1974. This camera was intended to be used by the advanced amateur photographer, with many of the same features and same build quality as the F-1.

The AT-1 is a pared down AE-1. It was produced purely for export and never sold in Japan. It was produced in 1976. This camera has no shutter priority auto-exposure mode that the AE-1 has.