Canonet 28 - flash question

[jimk]

Hello all!

I found a Canonet 28 in a flea-market today and purchased it (10.00 CDN). I loaded some film and then decided to try flash. The flash fires in "A" mode, but if I select a specific aperature the flash does not fire. This is the reverse of what I expected. The flash is a Vivitar 2800 which has worked well with my QL17.

Ideas?

 

[Russ]

Re: Canonet 28 - flash question

Hello all!

I found a Canonet 28 in a flea-market today and purchased it (10.00 CDN). I loaded some film and then decided to try flash. The flash fires in "A" mode, but if I select a specific aperature the flash does not fire. This is the reverse of what I expected. The flash is a Vivitar 2800 which has worked well with my QL17.

Ideas?

Jimk

I'm not sure. I believe that it was designed to fire with a popper (flash) when you pre-set an aperture. I have two of them, I'll try it tonight when I return home, and let you know.

Russ

 

[Huck Finn]

Jim, the Canonlite D is designed to work with the Canonet in "A" mode. This camera can be used with other flash units, but the correct guide number (GN) for the flash unit must be selected, i.e. one of the blue numbers on the aperture collar on the lens. This selection must remain set & specific aperture settings cannot be further adjusted; you can only change sutter speeds. The shutter speed on the flash unit should be set at 1/30 sec.

There is a socket on the side of the body for the cord of the flash unit to attach, but if your Vivitar is working on the hot shoe, I would guess that it is compatible & does not require selecting a GN.

Also worth mentioning is the fact that the shutter button is designed to lock when the subject is too far or too close, as judged by the focus setting & the distance limits of the flash.

Good luck with it. It's a nice little camera. If you don't have a manual, it would be worth getting one. They are available on-line & can be downloaded or printed. Let me know if you need one & I will post the information.

Cheers . . .

 

[jimk]

Thanks for the info - looking forward to seeing what Russ finds with his Canonet 28. From what I've read the aperature settings are only there to help with manual flash so perhaps it is more a problem with using a Vivitar.

Also for clarifcation, the Canonet 28 doesn't have a flash synch socket like the Canonet QL17 has - the QL17 is quite a lot more functional.

On the bright side, the test results were good despite questionable development on my part (wouldn't you know it, while developing the test roll of film, the batteries died in my timer and I was left guessing at time remaining). The lens seems sharp and contrasty, no light leaks in the body, and the meter seems accurate. Best of all the range finder is aligned.

Thanks for the offer of the manual Huck, I was able to find one online and so I am set.

My eldest daughter would like her own camera and I think this might be a really good fit for her. As Huck points out it just won't let her shoot outside the metered range.

Thanks for the suggestions,

Jim

 

[Huck Finn]

You're right about the difference with the QL 17, Jim. I was giving you information about my 17. Sorry, but I didn't read your post closely enough. I saw "Canonet" & my eyes jumped right over the "28." Good luck with it anyway. I'm glad you got the manual.

 

[Russ]

JIMK

Alright, home now, with camera in hand. Gee, I haven't used the Canonet 28 in over ten years. I remember now, that when I did use it with a popper, I did it just as I now do with the Canon GIII QL-17. I put one of my small Vivitar poppers on it, set the flash unit to f/8 and the camera to f/8, and fire away. Perfect exposures every time. However, I did just notice an extra contact on the cameras hot shoe, so I did some checking, and found this bit of information on it.

"The Canon shutter is entirely stepless from 1/30 to 1/620 seconds. It's not TTL metering as the CdS cell is located right above the taking lens, but it still does a great job.Since the CdS cell is on the lens mount itself, a handy feature is that if you forget to leave the lens cap on (a common mistake with rangefinders as the viewscreen doesn't go black as with SLRs), the camera's slow-shutter interlock functions and you can't take a picture. Sweet.

Although the Canon Museum says this unit features parallax compensation, my one doesn't. It only has a spare set of gridlines in the viewfinder that one is supposed to use at close distances. The Canonlite flash that came with it can be coupled with the metering system through an extra pin on the hotshoe. This allows for full "plug-and-play" nighttime shots, that is if your Canolite wasn't DOA. Grr.

The program automatic exposure is annoying. There, I said it. In daylight, it gives you the shutterspeed reading, but the aperture it hass selected is a mystery (somewhat - it selects mid-apertures in most cases). When trying to flash sync, you can't take advantage of the Copal shutter's ability to sync at any speed. Moving the aperture dial off automatic exposure also locks down the shutter speed to 1/60 (I think)"

Personally, I think you're better off with a small, very cheap auto flash unit. In that way, you control the aperture, and you don't dump the whole flash load on every shot. When I use the Canon GIII QL-17 in this manner, I get consistently good results. If I remember correctly, the 40mm f/2.8 lens on the Canonet 28, is pretty good. The bummer is that it's totally auto exposure, when shooting in the "A" mode. No manual override. So the aperture settings are only good for flash shooting.

Russ

 

[jimk]

Russ,

Thanks for the info. I was reading the manual and it said to use other flashes one must use a hot shoe adapter to use the specific aperature settings. Maybe that explains why my Vivitar doesn't pop anywhere but on A mode. But I agree with you, an autoflash is simpler than worrying about guide numbers anyway.

My 28er has just the extra "closeup" parallex lines too - no real parallex compensation.

Canon sold a tonne of these cameras; I think we are in the minority wanting to know about and control aperatures.. Even today.

But I am really happy with the 28; there are times when I just want a camera that is dead simple without sacrificing all control (at least I can focus and use the film speed control for exposure compensation). It's also a great little weapon should someome try to mug me 🙂

Jim

Jim

 

[Sonnar Brian]

The extra little brightlines markers are the "parallex correction" marks. The term "parallex corrected" was used for brightline marks and "auto-parallex corrected" was used for shifting the framelines. This is opposed to older viewfinders like the screw mount Leica's (except IIIG) and Contax cameras. Better than nothing. I am now sploied by the Konica S2 which changes the size and shifts the framelines as you focus.

 

[Russ]

The extra little brightlines markers are the "parallex correction" marks. The term "parallex corrected" was used for brightline marks and "auto-parallex corrected" was used for shifting the framelines. This is opposed to older viewfinders like the screw mount Leica's (except IIIG) and Contax cameras. Better than nothing. I am now sploied by the Konica S2 which changes the size and shifts the framelines as you focus.

Brian

The GIII QL-17, also has the shifting framelines too. I've made it very obvious that the GIII QL-17 is in my opnion, way overrated. I think it's because I am frustrated with it. It has a great viewfinder and focusing patch, but the lens quality falls short of what I want from it. I still use it quite a bit for indoor flash and people shooting. It's just that my Viv ES and Oly RC lenses are so much better. But because of the focusing patch, I can focus very quickly in dim lighting conditions. And as I said earlier, I just set the aperture @ f/8 and the popper to f/8, and fire away. I realized last night that the Canonet 28, also has a very good focusing patch.

Russ

 

[jimk]

I like the QL17 for carefree shooting situations. Once in a while I get something I like and so the lens isn't a problem for me.

I think the positives outweigh the few nit picks I have on the QL17.

My QL17's focus ring is a bit stiff, there are 3 protruding little metal tabs on the lens that aren't that nice feeling on the fingers, and the aperature ring is near the focus ring so that I tend to change aperatures a bit without knowing it.

I can overlook all that since it is so easy to focus, has a nice quiet shutter, and the lens produces good results for the size of prints that I make.

Is the camera overrated? It is not perfect but on the other hand I wish a modern manufacturer would produce something similar.

So what is the closest thing to a Canonet - today??? Consider cost, size, ergonomics, build?

The above is supposed to be an image link of my favourite QL17 image (if I have done this correctly) 🙂