Any Canon VT Users?

[back alley]

i am very tempted kim.
i have long wanted to try a nice 6l canon.
but the timing is off as i am camera $$ poor at the moment.
perhaps in mid december...

it has 35 fl, yes?

joe

 

[dberger]

Just to clear things up: The first 2 VT Deluxe models have the warm-tone finder. Only the last version has the cooler-toned finder.

cheers,

David

 

[bobkonos]

I'll chime in and say that I have a VT deluxe and a V1-T, and both are great to use. I also have an L1 that DAG repaired (vertical alignment in the rangefinder was off). He did his usual excellent job, and we talked at length about the neat design features of Canon rrangefinders (thus confirming that he is not just a Leica fan). I hope this helps.

 

[Kim Coxon]

Hi Joe,
It has one selection (0.65x) for 35, the second gives you (1.0x) with 50 + 100 lines, and the third is "mag", about 1.55x which works nicely with the 135 😉 .

Kim

i am very tempted kim.
i have long wanted to try a nice 6l canon.
but the timing is off as i am camera $$ poor at the moment.
perhaps in mid december...

it has 35 fl, yes?

joe

 

[Rich Silfver]

Hi Rich,
What "challenge" does the VF have? The reason I ask is that Stephen Gandy had a VI-L with a challenged finder and ended up buying my VT to take the finder out as they are not easy to repair. Just a thought.

Kim

The rangefinder patch looked 'faded' and then disappeared all together.
This was months and months ago and I've had the camera just sitting around since then. Recently I played around with it and the rangefinder patch was back and looking good. A few dry-shots later it went away again.

I just got an email back from Don and he wrote that based on my description it sounded like, and I quote, "there's an optical component in the R/F that can come loose and cause the 2nd image to come in & out - so this should be repairable".

The winder on my VT also 'jammed' a couple of times and he said that would be a fairly easy thing to include in the repair.

Waiting for a rough estimate from him and maybe this one will take it to the streets again:

 

[capitalK]

Sorry for the bump from beyond the grave of this post from almost 12 years ago, but I just picked one up.

I had very little faith in the camera, because it had green corrosion oozing out of just about every crevice, so I took the lens off it to put on another camera.

After a few days I took a second look at the VT. It actually looked quite nice, aside from the corrosion. I looked up the problem and took some Q-tips soaked in white vinegar and it cleaned up quite nicely, though I am sure there is some corrosion on the inside.

I reattached the Nikkor 50mm f/2 that came with it and shot a roll.

Holy smokes, this is a nice camera... and the trigger winder is great to shoot with in the cold Canadian winter with gloves on.

First roll came back just about perfect. Nothing better than buying a camera for peanuts and having a very low expectation of it only to have it knock your socks off.

 

[Mackinaw]

Great story.

Jim B.

 

[Fixcinater]

It's an easy operation to pull the bottom plate off and clean the old grease out of the chain tracks and lubricate that area appropriately, it made a large difference in the winding feel of both my VT and VT Deluxe. No special tools required, aside from a well fitting flat blade screwdriver.

 

[Doug]

Congratulations on finding a good working VT! Pleasant surprise to find it better working than looking... I had one on loan before this thread was posted, in August 1964 😀 It's a solid chunk of camera! I used it to do some head-shots of a pretty young model: 3.5/135mm Canon lens, Anscochrome 50, tripod. I liked it but unfortunately had to take it back. Have fun!

 

[iphoenix]

It's an easy operation to pull the bottom plate off and clean the old grease out of the chain tracks and lubricate that area appropriately, it made a large difference in the winding feel of both my VT and VT Deluxe. No special tools required, aside from a well fitting flat blade screwdriver.

Totally agree,
Some years ago I gave a (just bought) Vt to an "expert" Leica repairer at a major Melbourne shop to fix the slow speeds.
Yes,he fixed the slow speeds, but I could no longer use the trigger.
After being returned twice, the trigger was still playing up. Due to frustration, I just put the camera on one side. (I could rationalise this because I had paid a very good price for it plus the filters, hoods, lenses,etc.
A few years later I decided to see if I could get it working.

Removed baseplate, carefully cleaned old grease from the gears and chain (very careful and miniscule use of electronic cleaning solvent helped), then a tiny amount of sewing machine oil where needed.
10 years later my Vt is still working properly.

It's a great camera, but you've got to be careful when taking it internationally; I've found the trigger must be explained; etc.;etc.😱