Canon EOS 10 / EOS 10S / EOS 10QD
The Canon EOS 10S kicked off the 1990s, debuting in March of that first year of the decade. On the surface the 10S maintained the solid tradition of Canon EOS autofocus film SLR cameras and was consistent in design with its predecessors. The biggest improvement to the EOS 10S was its Multi-BASIS AF sensor which offered three autofocus points. The camera has two autofocus modes: One Shot AF and predictive AI Servo AF with the former intended for stationary subject matter and the latter for moving subjects. If the camera is used in its full auto mode it is able to switch between these autofocus modes based on readings from the Multi-BASIS sensors when subject matter goes from still to moving.
Multi-BASIS AF wasn't the only innovation that the EOS 10S offered. The camera also included an early form of scene selection that would later become present on most autofocus consumer SLR cameras. With the EOS 10S scene selection worked in a fairly tedious fashion. Users had to buy a bar code scanner accessory (the Barcode Reader E) and use that with a provided booklet that offered several different scenes labeled with... you guessed it, barcodes! By setting the EOS 10S to a barcode mode on the command dial then zapping the desired code from the booklet and waiting for the settings to be transferred wirelessly from the Barcode Reader E to camera users could customize their EOS 10S to a variety of scenes. Of course one could also just manually make necessary adjustments to camera settings in much less time if they have enough familiarity with camera settings. This system proved interesting but cumbersome and the EOS 10S is apparently the only Canon camera to utilize barcode scanning like this. Of course later cameras would still offer a scene selection option but that came to be represented as a limited selection on the command dial itself.
In terms of its other features, the EOS 10S has a vertically-travelling focal plane shutter with a range of shutter speeds from 30s to 1/4000, plus a Bulb mode and a flash sync of 1/125. Exposure modes include the usual metered Manual, AV - Aperture Value, TV - Time Value (shutter priority), full autoexposure Program as well as the Full Auto mode that automated several camera functions beyond setting of shutter and aperture. The EOS 10S has a built-in pop-up flash (GN12 at ISO 100, meters), as well as a hot shoe for external flash. The built-in motor drive offers automatic film loading, advancing and rewinding as well as up to 5fps continuous firing.
This camera was marketed as the Canon EOS 10S in North America, the Canon EOS 10 in Europe and the Canon EOS 10 QD in Japan.
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