John Bragg
Well-known
Canonet QL17 Giii by E.J. Bragg, on FlickrHi All. I have a fairly well looked after and lightly used example which I bought a while ago and had a partial CLA done on the shutter. I installed new seals, courtesy of Jon Goodman, and it has lain unused for a while, as life sometimes has other plans for us. I have finally gotten round to using this charming little camera and it currently is being fed some HP5+. Lesson one today was that although the meter will function with a 1.5v silver cell, it will not meter accurately, so back to sunny 16. I have a solution to that problem in the post in the shape of a converter and some hearing aid batteries. Also on the way to me is a couple of hoods from China. One straight and one flared with cutouts. I figured to get both as they were crazy cheap and I will use the most appropriate one. Any further tips and useful hints would be gratefully received.
Regards, John.
John Bragg
Well-known
Added a photo of the little Canonet.
Jeremy Z
Well-known
Hi John. That is a nice-looking camera. I remember from mine that the build quality was excellent; a step above many other fixed lens rangefinders of the era.
Re. the light meter not being accurate, can you compensate by changing the film speed setting?
Re. Sunny 16, it works pretty well, especially toward the brighter end of the spectrum and with print film. HP5+ has quite a lot of latitude to help you out in that regard.
I look forward to seeing the shots from it!
Re. the light meter not being accurate, can you compensate by changing the film speed setting?
Re. Sunny 16, it works pretty well, especially toward the brighter end of the spectrum and with print film. HP5+ has quite a lot of latitude to help you out in that regard.
I look forward to seeing the shots from it!
John Bragg
Well-known
Hi Jeremy. Yes it is a good one, lightly used. The seals were completely shot and the shutter jammed when I made the schoolboy error of trying the near 50 year old self timer. I had that sorted and just put it on the back burner. Fast fwd to the present and I have time on my hands. If it works out well for me, I may go the whole hog and get a CRIS type MR9 converter and run it on SR44 as advised by Bellamy Hunt.. He has just published a youtube review. Offsetting the ISO by 1/3 stop works with an alkaline battery but their power is not constant and diminishes gradually, unlike the original Mercury PX 625. Overall, it is one pretty little camera and worth the effort to make it work like new.
Jeremy Z
Well-known
I have one of those MR9 adapters; the fancy voltage-compensating ones. Can't quite bring myself to buy two more, at current prices, so I just move it from camera to camera as I use them. (and try to stay away from more cameras that need 625s! ;-) )
I have to say though, that the difference in exposure is probably not going to matter at all with print film. We can compensate SO much in scanning and post-processing; it's amazing.
Do you shoot a lot of slides these days?
I have to say though, that the difference in exposure is probably not going to matter at all with print film. We can compensate SO much in scanning and post-processing; it's amazing.
Do you shoot a lot of slides these days?
Fraser
Well-known
I just had a look at what battery mine has and its just bog standard px625a it meters fine never checked it against a handheld meter just from the results on film. Not sure if the meters in these were that good anyway.