Camera Review: Canon SureShot Z135 35mm Film Camera

If you want to take nice photographs and you're on a budget, you can still get a great camera for an extremely low price if you shoot film. Yes, film. While Kodak Kodachrome film may be retired, you can still buy and shoot lots of less renowned 35mm film and get it developed at your local drugstore. The Canon SureShot Z135 camera is a circa 1996 example of mature film technology. The Canon SureShot Z135 is a fully automatic lens-shutter 35mm viewfinder camera with a zoom. It is simply point and shoot film camera. While the Canon SureShot may be old, it's too automated and too state of the art to be called vintage.

The Canon SureShot Z135 film camera is very simple to operate. A "Best Shot Wheel" on the back lets you select from seven settings: auto, sport, night, portrait, flowers, S-auto, and spot. Most of the time, users will simply want to select auto and let the camera do the work of selecting aperture and shutter speed. If you are trying to slow a fast moving target like an athlete, bird, or vehicle, the Canon SureShot Z135 will select appropriate settings to stop the movement with a fast shutter speed. However, if you are shooting in low light conditions, you could select the night mode and the camera will set the flash, aperture, and shutter speed to illuminate your subject while admitting enough light to capture the background. The portrait mode is great for close up portraits of human subjects and the flowers mode will let you capture great close ups of flowers, plants, and other close objects. If you are working in a quiet setting and don't want to disturb people or animals, then you can choose S-auto to reduce the noise and whirring of the camera. Finally, the spot mode meters the light appropriately for situations where the subject is brighter than the background. If your picture needs flash, it will automatically pop up and flash when needed.

Zooming in and out is handled via a rocker on the top of the Canon Sure Shot Z135 camera right beside the shutter button. The lens zooms from 38mm to 135mm focal lengths. For comparison, my Kodak Z950 digital camera has a 10x optical zoom of 35mm to 350mm. So, in digital terms, the Canon Sure Shot Z135 has about a 3.6x zoom. To focus on a subject, you simply frame the subject in a box within the viewfinder, zoom as needed, depress the shutter button half-way, hold it while you finish composing your shot, and then fully depress the shutter button to take the picture. It's a very quick process.

While the "Best Shot Wheel" and zoom rocker are remarkably convenient, I found it a little less convenient to turn off the flash, turn on red-eye reduction, or activate the self-time. These functions are handled via small buttons hidden behind an flip-down access panel on the back of the camera. An LCD panel indicates whether the features are active or not and the number of shots remaining on the roll of film. The camera is a tad larger than most of today's digital cameras and would not fit in my Vaultz Camera Case.

I recently found my Canon Sure Shot Z135 in a thrift store for only $20. They also sell used on Amazon from $25 to $76. I can't complain about the durability of my Canon Sure Shot Z135. It must have been well-made for it to survive in a box of old cameras at a thrift store. I took my Canon Sure Shot Z135 all over Florida's Forgotten Coast while shooting my first roll of film. My Canon Sure Shot didn't have a case and I just tossed it on the floor of my car. However, the battered Z135 didn't complain and the pictures turned out well.

For a $20 investment, the Canon Sure Shot Z135 clearly outperforms inexpensive digital cameras like the Aries 3-in-1 Camera and Vivitar Mini Camera. It's also better than 35mm disposable cameras from the drugstore. The photos are approximately equivalent to those taken by my RCA Small Wonder digital camcorder. Overall, the Canon Z135 earned a place in my film camera collection and will receive a case to pamper it in semi-retirement.