Canon Canonet QL17 GIII New Owner

[Uncle Bill]

Ok, can you say Rangefinder addict. The extent of Canon in my equipment fleet is a screwmount 50/1.4 which I use with my Leica M3, an AE1 which has a mirror on board and does not count and now a Canonet QL17 GIII with the 40/1.7 lens. Ok this is not an M3 but for $129 CDN restored with original flash, pretty cool. I am halfway through a roll of ASA 100 Fuji Reala. Call a bit of an impulse purchase but I now have a camera I can put in my briefcase and not worry.

Bill

 

[peter_n]

My thoughts exactly, Bill. I bought one recently and took it with me on vacation last week and brought it everywhere. That f1.7 lens is really great! 🙂

 

[mstevenson]

Absolutely love this camera, but my meter died a couple of weeks ago 🙁 I tried to fix it to no avail, I think I spilled a drink on it when shooting these: http://majikal.org/photo/alexparty/

 

[Designer]

Congratulations on acquiring this little tank! Bill. 🙂

Keven

 

[canonetc]

Definitely! The canonet got me hooked on rangefinders. It;s a priceless little gem. I once found and bought for a friend a Canonet that had been all over China and Tibet, taken and used there by a retired widow. I almost wanted to keep it for myself....

cheers,
Chris
canonetc

 

[MCTuomey]

There seems to be a certain attraction exerted by this camera. I do need to sell some gear and was thinking of letting my leaf shutter RFs go. But I can't part with the Canonet ...

Now I'm considering getting my little chum a CLA instead. Talk about mood swings.

Time for a Guinness at one of my water holes with the Canonet sitting right up on the bar, ready to shoot the dark, f1.7 and 1/30. Gotta go.

 

[peter_n]

FWIW I sent my recently purchased Canonet to Essex for a CLA and they did a wonderful job. The thing came back transformed! 🙂

 

[Beniliam]

I hope the next week will have my new Canonet QL III 17 too!

 

[peter_n]

You will love it, David. Just a great lens on that camera. Looking forward to some pictures from it! 🙂

 

[MCTuomey]

Thanks for the tip, Peter. I just emailed them for an estimate for a CLA.

 

[Beniliam]

Gracias Peter. Yes when make some films. I put in the gallery the photos 🙂

 

[Alan]

I'll be joining the Canonet team really soon, i found a QL17 GIII on photo.net. i'm really looking forward to it.

 

[Alan]

i'm planning to use mostly XP2 or Tmax for black and white, since these are the 2 films i can get a good price on with developments. Which of the two has more contrast? and is the lens it self fairly contrasty? how would you rate it?
also i'll be trying to use Velvia, but is the meter on the QL17 accurate enough for slide films?
Thank you for any answers.

 

[TPPhotog]

No wonder the prices of these beasties are going up on Ebay as we're all buying them and getting addicted. Bye bye SLRs 😀

 

[Pherdinand]

Alan, if you use the correct battery and if you use the meter in a correct way i think it should be good enough. Correct way meaning, avoid bright frontlight, and don't point it to the sky unless you want the sky itself to be correctly exposed no matter the foreground.

I think Mike RIchards used the traveling Canonet with slides, relying completely on the internal meter. ad he wrote they are exposed ok.

 

[Alan]

it's really assuring that the meter is that accurate. I was going back to SLRs, but then saw this camera on photo.net, with the lizard skin, i just can't resist it! like TPPhotog said, Good bye SLRs!

 

[Kim Coxon]

Hi Alan,
At the risk of starting the whole battery/meter argument again, the meter on the GIII is one of the better ones as long as you are aware of it's limitations. However, You wil need to do something about batteries.

The original mercury batteries specified by Canon are no longer available. You have 3 options. The first is to use wein cells or zinc air hearig aid bateries. These have the right voltage but are short lived. The wein cells are expensive and the zinc airs very short lived. Also they work because they have holes in them to let the air in. This gaives a higher risk of them leaking so don't leave them in the camera longer than you have to.

The second is to use a battery adapter. There are several available but make sure tou get one capable of the current needed by the GIII. Another member on the Forum, John Neal makes some good ones. These use normal SR44 silver cells which are very common and cheap. The third alterantive is to take the top off the camera and re-calibrate the meter so you can use silver cells without an adapter. I have found this works well in the GIII and is the cheapest option.

Regards
Kim

also i'll be trying to use Velvia, but is the meter on the QL17 accurate enough for slide films?
Thank you for any answers.

 

[peter_n]

Which of the two has more contrast? and is the lens it self fairly contrasty? how would you rate it?

Alan I can only speak to the lens on the Canonet - it is a teeny bit soft at f1.7 but sharp to very sharp from then on with excellent contrast. I just posted a couple of shots at f2.8 and f8 in another thread taken with the Canonet and here is a direct link to that post so you can judge for yourself.

 

[Alan]

Kim, the camera i'm buying comes with a mercury battery, so i will probably take it to get CLA done and ask them to change the voltage for me. as long as the meter don't go dead, i will be happy.

Peter, hose pictures looks lovely, what film did you use?

 

[peter_n]

Thanks Alan! I'm a Fuji fan. The f2.8 on the left was shot with Neopan 1600 rated at 1250ASA, the f8 on the right was done with Neopan 400 rated at 320ASA. Both developed in XTOL by Zona Labs of Somerville, MA.