Some photos from a canonet QL17

Hello,

 

Just to share some photos from a test roll I did with a QL17 I've

purchased in a quite good condition. I changed the light seals, took

the lens apart and cleaned it from dust. The photos look good, photos

are scanned from prints. I like this camera, it is nice to use too<div></div>

Here is another one<div></div>

They're great little cameras with a very good fast lens, aren't they Tony. Good shots. Show some more.

Thanks for posting, Tony. Nice shots. I like my Canonet 17, too. Mostly I do B&W with it, nicely balanced fast lens. Surprisingly good in low light. Your shots make me want to run some color through it.

All of those photos look fuzzy to me. Perhaps it was the scanning?

Tony, I want to purchase a QL17 also. But majority of them don't have new light seals

installed and the battery is a problem.

 

I've never tinkered with a camera, you think I can fix it anyway? :)

 

You know anywhere on the web with information on how to or where to buy some good

quality light seals for this thing?

I regularly use the light seal kits by John Goodman and warmly recommend it. He is also a regular contributor to this site, or make an ebay search for "interslice".

The photos here looked fuzzy cause the scan I think, they look sharp on the paper.

 

HC, it is very easy to replace the light seals yourself. I used 2 mm thickness foam in a small roll (similat to duct tape but it is foam). For the battery, a SR44 works very well, you only need a small washer cause the SR44 is a little bit thinner than the mercury battery. Make a search on the web, you can find the dimensions of the seals to cut in case you cant get these dimensions from the old seals

That fuzziness seems familiar to me. I also scan prints on a flatbed. Serious unsharp masking is needed to get them back to "normal".

 

Nice little camera, i agree. Although i prefer aperture priority ones (like the yashica electro's).

Hello,

 

I also use an older Canonet Ql-17 (pre-GIII), mostly for b&w. I think these old rangefinders (also the Yashica Electros) are much fun and the results are pretty decent. They feel solid and the fast lens and the leaf shutter are great for available light shooting. (Lately I asked someone to take a foto of some friends and me at an exhibition. After he had taken the foto the man said: the camera doesn't work - there was no flash.)

 

One thing that makes me wonder with the Canonet is that the aperture never opens fully even when it shows a chosen f/stop of 1.7 inside the view finder. It opens just to about 2 (you can see the aperture blades). Is this normal?

 

Nils

Nils, just checked it after I saw your reply, mine does the same too, never noticed that before, but Idont care, never had problem with it. I dont know if it is normal or not.