New Canonet QL17

[Anglekat]

This little beauty arrived in the post yesterday.

Serviced, new seals & 3 months warranty

Just got to get myself some film to try it out.

Ken.

[nzeeman]

when you try it you will fall in love with this camera. and also - try it with hp5 - its a great combo.

[SolaresLarrave]

Looks really spiffy! I have to do the same for mine. It deserves it.

[Sam R]

Get the coupled flash....it's power is coupled to the focus point....works fantastic. Great camera...wish I still had mine

[jbf]

Bah, flashes are for sissys.


(that is, unless you have _really_ good experience using flashes and in the studio... but even then why would you even want to use such a camera in a studio? that's rediculous. )


I'd love to pick up one of these cameras some day just for the hell of it.

[Bob G]

Even without the dedicated flash, the aperture ring has markings for guide numbers (in meters I think) that will automatically set the aperture based on distance. This would also allow you to control flash compensation to some extent. BTW. I have a tiny "Mighty Mite" flash that has a pc cord. I use a Pentax ME ever-ready case and the flash fits in the case's extended lens barrel. With the cord I can hold the flash in one hand to bounce it. It's my second Canonet GIII and it makes film photography a joy.

[Bingley]

Congratulations! This is a wonderful camera, compact, capable, and a nifty little street shooter. I like using 400UC or similar color films in mine; I like the warm tones from the lens. I've also got the flash for it; it works reasonably well although I haven't used mine a lot.

[wintersway]

Beautiful! I hope you take lots of great shots with it. I love mine!

[Anglekat]

I`m probably going to try it with XP2 first of all as i don`t process my own B&W ( yet !!) & i seem to convert most of my d*g*t*l stuff into mono. I`ll get some posted when they are done.

I reckon i would`nt use the flash much, one of the few times i have is for this one.
(just a touch of fill in with my D70s)

It certainly has a much better feel than my recently jammed QL25.

Ken.

[jayfixit]

Be careful...these are addictive. I went from having a QL19 GIII....to...well...3 different Canonets.

I love just taking mine with when I go out. It's great to have a camera that takes such great pics, but you don't worry about how much it cost.

[Tony Polson]

The best feature of the Canonet QL17 is the lens. Of all the 1970s classic rangefinders, it has the best and most "Leica-like" lens.

With excellent sharpness and beautiful, smooth bokeh, it is a gem of a camera. And this one is also in beautiful consmetic condition. Congratulations!

[dazedgonebye]

Very nice.
Tons of fun to come.

[dmr]

You got yourself a very nice camera, and with new seals and servicing you won't have to go through much of what many of us did.

You will find that you have over 95% of the functionality and performance of the higher end rangefinders at a fraction of the price!

[Anglekat]

My XP2 is on it`s way........can`t wait

[januaryman]

XP-2 was made for the Q17. It's probably my favirite small shooter.

[farce]

what batteries are you guys using?
-Francis

[fishtek]

Wein makes a 1.35 cell, available for @$6.00 generally, $5.00 through Freestyle, but you have to build a $30.00 order. Great film choices there, especially b/w stuff.

Regards!
Don

[Bingley]

Originally Posted by farce

what batteries are you guys using?
-Francis

Energizer 675 hearing aid batteries work.

[Anglekat]

When i bought the camera, it had an old mercury 625 cell in it which still worked.

I bought a Wein 625 cell 1.35v as a spare from

http://www.smallbattery.company.org.uk/

Very quick delivery, but i`m not sure if they send outside of UK & EU.

[Brian Sweeney]

Be sure to set the camera to manual when not using it; that turns the meter off and stops battery drain completely. Some of my Mercury Cell Batteries are twenty years old and still work. Leave the meter on, and they drop dead in about 1 year.

[Anglekat]

Yeah, i made a point of doing that.

I`ve no idea how old the original battery is. Be interesting to see how long it lasts.

I`m not much good at guessing light levels, so i bought the spare.

[dmr]

Originally Posted by farce

what batteries are you guys using?

I'm using the "wrong" plain-jane 625 in both of my GIIIs.

One of my dad's rules of photography, one that I do agree with, is that the light meter is giving you a suggestion as to exposure, and not a mandate to use what it says. You should use your eyes and brain along with the light meter!

On the black GIII, I'm using the 625 as-is. As would be expected, the meter is a wee bit "hotter" and therefore tends to underexpose a wee bit on the bright end of the scale. It's still well within a stop of my "laboratory standard" camera.

On the chrome GIII, I recalibrated it so I can use 1600 film, and in the process of doing this, it was also recalibrated for the currently-available off-the-shelf 625.

Both of the GIIIs give very close exposures, even with slide film, which as you know, can't take a joke as far as exposure is concerned.

The only battery problem I've had recently is a dead battery, and when it died, it died fast and hard! It was working normally one afternoon last October, battery check light good, and good Kodachromes from the session. Early evening it died! No meter movement, no battery check light, and failed the taste test. The problem that night was that I couldn't find a 625 anywhere. Two Walgreens and one CVS did not have them. It was Sunday evening and no real camera places were open in the area. I had to shoot that evening using only the carbon-based light meter which I've carried with me for more years than I care to admit. I ended up having a roll of Sensia cross-processed in C41 in order to leverage some latitude there!

[zuikologist]

Dmr - do you have the results of the cross processing?

[dmr]

Originally Posted by zuikologist

Dmr - do you have the results of the cross processing?

Here's one of them in the gallery:

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/phot...15&ppuser=1182

Several others are in this blog item:

http://omababe.blogspot.com/2007/10/...sing-bean.html

These were all exposure by total guess!

[farce]

Thanks guys for the battery information. I'll check out the wien battery,
and see if my local walgreens has the hearing aid battery,
-Francis