Enough Is Enough Stop Telling People This Lie

[JohnM]

I'm glad you didn't get into it either.

 

[Pherdinand]

OK, i'll make it easier for you. My previous post including the remark on your grammar might have been too complicated. So here's what i mean:

Your remark on the canonet accuracy is true but it does not mean more in practice, than a grammar mistake in understanding a text. Just a little ignorable error, that's all.

So have fun with your 40+ cameras and old friend with his boxes full of cameras etc etc and let us play with our toys. After all, you don't tell kids that their toys suck and they are stupid, now do you?

 

[pshinkaw]

Amen!

(apparently I need at least 10 letters to a post before the system will accept it, spaced don't count)

-Paul

 

[Kin Lau]

Really...i really checked the canonet meter.
I just looked up the numbers i got. As an example, when the metered aperture is f/5.6 for 1.350 V, that becomes just a bit less, approx. f/6.3, for 1.550 V. I used a fairly accurate voltage supply and a voltmeter measuring down to a few millivolts. The canonet thus UNDERexposes with less than half a stop when using a 1.55V battery instead of the mercury.

The was a discussion on pnet about this some time ago, and one of the problems with alkaline batteries was that the discharge rate varies btwn the time you turn the camera on, and takes a little while to even out, especially towards the end of it's life. Turn the camera off (lenscap on or switch out of "A"), leave the camera for a bit, turn it back on again, and you'll get that little "spike".

 

[Sonnar Brian]

I wish I could take credit for the Ronsonol Idea!

Chris Eve gave me that terrific tip on repairing stuck leaflet shutters.

So far I am 8 for 9, could not get a Reflex IV working again. But four Canonets, two Retina IIIs', a Retina Reflex S, and a Retina IIIc are going strong after using this technique over the last two years.

I still have a supply of Mercury Cells. A second problem is that CDS meters lose sensitivity at the high and low end. I wonder if the loss of sensitivity and increase in voltage of the alkaline batteries work to give better results in some cases.

 

[Honu-Hugger]

I have never used the Wein cells, I just get an 8 pack of zinc air hearing aid batteries for about $5 on sale. I have them last quite a few months. BTW the yashicas are wired a bit
different and they compensate for the higher voltage. They are accurate enough to use
slide film in also..

That is precisely the problem with Zinc Air cells -- months of use instead of years. I can't speak for the rest of you, but now that the extreme environmental danger of the mercury in these "button" batteries has been eliminated I'm expecting to live at least forty or fifty years longer. Perhaps with this major environmental hazard under control our "leaders" can now focus on lesser environmental concerns such as the by-products from coal and fuel fired power plants, global oceanic pollution -- you know, the nit-picky little things that can sometimes be such an annoyance. But thank God the mercury cells are gone because I do feel so much safer now 😀

 

[dmr]

Believe it or not, this topic is of great interest to me, since I've been wondering the same, and wondering if I should try to seek out a more perfect battery or try to calibrate the GIII to the higher voltage one.

As to myself, i did the following both with a minolta hi-matic 9 and a canonet ql17 GIII:
{deletia}
Believe it or not, the differences were way below 1 stop in the above experiment.

Since this is less than 1 stop, I'm wondering if the battery type isn't just one of many variables in the whole system, none of which are critical.

I'm thinking that the meter on the GIII might not be as precise or accurate as some others, such as the thru-the-lens ones on the Pentax or the Olympus. I see the sensor has a small lens in front of it, but it seems to me that the Canon responds less to "aiming" toward a spot to meter on than do the Pentax or the Olympus.

In any case, I think of the meter or autoexposure system in a camera as being approximate. I've always been in the habit of metering on something in particular to get the exposure, then composing. I see my own human error as more significant that that of a half-stop error in the meter.

 

[back alley]

mark,
relax, we are just trying to lighten things up some because you came out with fists flaring and looking for a fight.

i think you have been around here long enough to know that wouldn't fly well.
our fun was not aimed at you but more because of you.
in reaction to what looked like a scolding to a 2 year old.

we value your contributions and i certainly like your input on things canon.

but in truth, i react poorly when i feel yelled at.

joe

 

[Honu-Hugger]

(snip)... I now know the base level of this group I'll just read the posts for the humor and for go sharing any of my worthless knowledge and valuable time.

If you don't mind sharing perhaps one more time; in your determination exactly what is the "base level" of this group? Just curious...wondering where I stand and how to prepare myself for a possible blow to my fragile sensitivity.😉

 

[Kin Lau]

OH boy I'm sorry I guess I should have known that personal attacks would have made me seem so much more knowledgable about the cameras in question. Unlike relying the 15 years I have owned a dozen different Canonets along with the current 40+ other camera's I currently play with.

Just an observation Mark.... you do realize that the title of this thread is basically "You are a bunch of LIARS" don't you? That was my first reaction, and no doubt many others very much felt your post to be "IN YOUR FACE" (full caps intended).

BTW, anything said in full caps is considered to be shouting. With that in mind, reread the very last line of your first post in this thread.

 

[jan normandale]

Hi Mark

I’m going to make a suggestion. Re read your posts. I’m taking the view that you didn’t intend to do a bit of “flaming” and intended to help. The way your posts read however, are the thing that has raised the level of heat on the topic.

Finally it’s just photography. Some people use pinholes, some SLRs some use RF’s there are even “crappy camera” clubs for things like a Holga camera. This is not a science, there is some science yes but it is not about science. Take the camera you like and go shoot some pictures. Post them if you like them. That’s what it’s about. I get bad shots for many different reasons besides light meter accuracy. I throw the bad ones out, and adjust my technique with the camera for the next outing.

Cheers, Jan

 

[Honu-Hugger]

We have all been blinded by the details of this discussion and have missed the much bigger picture and true solution: God designed cameras in their purest form, without meters. He also designed meters, being directly involved in the design of various Westons, Gossens, and Ikophots while overseeing the development of the other handheld meters Then the Devil intervened by taking these two pure creations and attempting to combine them as one. There is only one true path, Brothers and Sisters, repent and return to the pure essence of unmetered cameras and handheld lightmeters -- it is the only path to salvation.

 

[sockeyed]

So, Pherdinand - does that mean that I could shoot 100 film at 80, or 400 at 320 on my Canonet powered by 1.5v batteries and get pretty good results?

 

[ray_g]

I'm with Rob. Zinc air hearing aid batteries plus a #9 o-ring - good (and inexpensive) enough for me.

Mark, I can't wait to read your Rangefinder Essay! The internet is full of conflicting information about everything. In the end, it really is up to the idea "consumer" to sort things out and make his own decision. That's all there is to it...

 

[Nikon Bob]

Mark W

I think that you are technically correct with respect to the battery voltages being different and having some effect on the metering. In the real world it makes not much difference with C41 film that I use, possibly with slide film. but I don't know as I don't use that type film. If it is a concern there are adaptors that regulate the presently available batteries to proper voltage, as has been pointed out here. The mickey mouse method of battery replacement has worked on my $5.00 yard sale Yashica and Minolta rangefinders with no ill effect to date. Sometimes the little things matter and sometimes they do not.

Bob

 

[Pherdinand]

So, Pherdinand - does that mean that I could shoot 100 film at 80, or 400 at 320 on my Canonet powered by 1.5v batteries and get pretty good results?

Sockeyed - yes. It seemed to me that the "half-stop" (more or less) underexposure tendency is quite consistent through the range of the canonet meter.

 

[Flyfisher Tom]

Call me simple, but the most effective argument is from Oscar/Taffer ... his slide photos look fine, nuff said.

Mark, you are probably right on the underlying facts. But two observations ... one, the differences (deltas) are so small that it apparently has no practical effect. Second, messages, particularly when accurate, are best presented in a friendly non-antagonistic style. Otherwise, you are just in love with your own voice ;-) If that is the case, may I suggest the Leica forum on photo.net? just kidding, my friend. We value your observations, just tone it down a little or cut down on the caffeine ... good wishes 🙂

 

[bmattock]

OK never mind

I'll just go back where I belong and leave you to play with your toys as you see fit.

You will find that when you come rip-roaring in to RFF and tell us all how stupid we are, you don't get the warmest of responses. That can't be too hard to figure out. Knock on my front door and tell me I mow my lawn incorrectly, and you may get a chance to examine my lawn from ground level, know what I mean?

If had been lurking around here for any length of time, you'd know that we have this discussion (about mercury battery substitutes) all the time. Everybody has an opinion, and often they are quite diverse. But RFF is a wonderful place - we don't tear each other up over our disagreements.

Even the 'regulars' haven't treated you to the debagging and radishing you've earned yourself at this point - you're being treated with kindness and some degree of tolerance. That's not because you earned it - it is because we are gentlefolk here.

Glad I didn't get into the retarted idea of squirting lighter fuild into the shutter and diaphram of a camera in an attempt to avoid the actual service required to fix the real problem.

Some of us a) Live a long way from an actual camera repairperson, b) don't have the funds required to have each and every rangefinder camera we own properly serviced and c) enjoy seeing what we can do on our own and sharing those results with others.

And this is wrong why, exactly?

The cameras we do these horrible things to are often worth quite a bit less than a proper service would cost.

I've been refused service on some of my older cameras - too old to work on, the experts said. Not worth the money, they said. I suppose if I were to follow your advice, I'd just chuck them in the trash then.

At one repair facility I visited, that's what the repairman did - he dumped my camera in the trash can right in front of me and told me it wasn't worth repairing. There's your lovely camera repairman friend, or one of his brethren. I nearly attacked him on the spot. The nerve, throwing away something that didn't belong to him in front of me, and telling me I was an idiot for wanting to get it fixed. People who act like that often take their teeth home in their pockets.

So I fixed it myself, with lighter fluid and q-tips and it works fine for me.

Your problem with this would be what, exactly?

And by the way - with a couple of notable exceptions, camera repair people I have visited in person are the rudest, snottiest, and least customer-friendly of just about any skilled tradesperson I've ever known, barring perhaps watchmakers. What is it that makes them so nasty?

One of my best friends is a camera repairman (a 32 year friendship) who has boxes of cameras collected over the years from home repairs like washing all the lube out of a camera into places it doesn't belong. I guess next time he starts bending my ear about the latest POS ruined by some fool trying their own repairs I'll just tell him he doesn't know what he's talking about everyone on the net knows things like any old battery and lighter fuild can fix any old camera just like new.

Some of us change our own oil on our cars to save money. I suppose we should go to the dealership.

I have certainly sent cameras off for 'proper repairs' and if you actually did bother to read the forums here, you'd see lots of advice along those lines - and the names and contact information of those in the industry whom we've come to trust and depend upon. I can't afford to send all my sick cameras there; so my alternative is to try the repair myself, or throw the camera away. You would have me toss it, I presume? Forgive me for saying that since it is my camera, I'll pretty much do as I please with it.

Last night, I disassembled a Braun Super Paxette camera. I will never be able to reassemble it. But it didn't work anyway. I gained some understanding by taking it apart. Now I know how to take the top off to clean the rangefinder mechanism inside WITHOUT ruining it - it happens to be glued on. And since I have 19 of the little buggers remaining, I guess I'll manage to get one or two working properly while I muddle along in my amatuer way. And I even have some spare parts now (grin).

So what is your problem with that? I could in no way afford $80 a pop to have each of these sent to Essex, nor would I want to. Toss them? Leave them in a box? Hey, I'm rescuing these beasties. My amateur efforts at least have some value to me. And I'm not hurting you one little bit.

To those of you who commented on my typos and poor grammer. OH boy I'm sorry I guess I should have known that personal attacks would have made me seem so much more knowledgable about the cameras in question.

You came in here and starting berating us in a most unfriendly fashion. I've done that myself here, from time to time - so I'm not guiltless, and I'll be even more careful to avoid doing it in the future - because now that the shoe is on the other foot, I can see how obnoxious it is.

Unlike relying the 15 years I have owned a dozen different Canonets along with the current 40+ other camera's I currently play with.

You would seem to have a lot of experience with Canonets. Guess what. There are those active on RFF who were doing this when Canonets were new, and to them, you're just a neophyte. Suggestion - get over yourself.

I now know the base level of this group I'll just read the posts for the humor and for go sharing any of my worthless knowledge and valuable time.

It is one thing to correct bad information, or information you see as being bad - that's a valuable service. But there are better ways to say it, especially around here.

If you had a problem with your preacher, would you enter into a discussion in a reasonable tone of voice, or would you stand up in church and loudly proclaim he's going to hell? Consider what you just did here to be the latter.

In any case, you did teach me a lesson - about myself. I'll try not to act like you again in the future when *I'm* tempted to do it.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[Stu :)]

On the subject of suitible batteries for a Canonet.

Anyone tried a Ni-MH Rechargealbe battery yet?
1.2v, doesn't have that nasty alkaline 'spike' and discharge rate similar to the old Mercury Oxide.

QL17 #3 has one in at moment as a field test. If all goes well I might have 1960's camera that plugs in the wall for recharging like modern digital camera.

Stu 🙂

 

[SolaresLarrave]

I hope you come back, Mark, and read our replies and reactions. Considering the tone of your first message, you got a nice treatment here. In other forums the moderator would have had to intervene and possibly delete a thread started in such a confrontational manner.

As for the subject... I've seen and read a lot about it, have my own opinion and experience. I use my Canonet with PX625 batteries, shooting both slide and print film. One of my principles is that photography is a hobby, and therefore I won't twist myself like a pretzel just to follow unwritten "rules" for it. If it works, I'll use it or do it. If it doesn't, I wont, but if someone else does it better, well, more power to the other person.

Just cool off, don't preach, lower your caffeine intake, increase the fiber in your diet, sleep well and realize that nothing in the world is perfect, can be perfect or should be perfect. We're just handling varying degrees of perfection... but mostly enjoying the ride with our cameras around our necks.