willie_901
Veteran
I want to say "Thank You!" to everyone here who advises Canonet owners about repairs.
At Christmas I got a very clean Canonet G-III QL17 at the local camera shop. They replaced the door seals and checked that everything worked just fine. I took a couple of rolls and found that the auto exposure and focus, and even the timer worked well. I decided to take the camera with me everywhere I went.
About a week ago the meter needle began to stick. Sometimes pressing the shutter half way a few times freed the needle, sometimes not, Sometimes a gentle tap on the camera freed the needle movement, and sometimes not. The shutter and aperture blades did not stick in the least. The needle seemed to be getting worse day by day. I replaced the battery but this did not help at all.
Because of the advice and links people give on this forum, I decided to open the top. I thought maybe the needle movement friction needed adjustment or perhaps the needle was bent a bit.
What I found was that the meter window with the f stop numbers (in the finder) had come partially unglued. The window would fall towards the front of the camera (but not off) and block the needle movement. I removed the thin window with tweezers and found that the meter/auto aperature control worked perfectly.
I very carefully glued the window back on the camera. I tried to match the vertical position as best I could. I also cleaned the "aperture lock" mechanism and carefully re-oiled it. I wanted to lightly oil other parts of the visible mechanisms, but because I had no idea what to oil (and what should never be oiled) I decided to leave well enough alone and put it back together.
Everything works fine.
I have never worked on anything as delicate as a camera before. I consider myself to be barely mecahnicaly adept on my best day. I would not have even thought about doing this if it had not been for all the encouraging posts I've read here.
Thanks again to my fellow RRF members.
willie
At Christmas I got a very clean Canonet G-III QL17 at the local camera shop. They replaced the door seals and checked that everything worked just fine. I took a couple of rolls and found that the auto exposure and focus, and even the timer worked well. I decided to take the camera with me everywhere I went.
About a week ago the meter needle began to stick. Sometimes pressing the shutter half way a few times freed the needle, sometimes not, Sometimes a gentle tap on the camera freed the needle movement, and sometimes not. The shutter and aperture blades did not stick in the least. The needle seemed to be getting worse day by day. I replaced the battery but this did not help at all.
Because of the advice and links people give on this forum, I decided to open the top. I thought maybe the needle movement friction needed adjustment or perhaps the needle was bent a bit.
What I found was that the meter window with the f stop numbers (in the finder) had come partially unglued. The window would fall towards the front of the camera (but not off) and block the needle movement. I removed the thin window with tweezers and found that the meter/auto aperature control worked perfectly.
I very carefully glued the window back on the camera. I tried to match the vertical position as best I could. I also cleaned the "aperture lock" mechanism and carefully re-oiled it. I wanted to lightly oil other parts of the visible mechanisms, but because I had no idea what to oil (and what should never be oiled) I decided to leave well enough alone and put it back together.
Everything works fine.
I have never worked on anything as delicate as a camera before. I consider myself to be barely mecahnicaly adept on my best day. I would not have even thought about doing this if it had not been for all the encouraging posts I've read here.
Thanks again to my fellow RRF members.
willie