What follows is a purely subjective review on my “new” camera, the Canonet QL17 G-III rangefinder. As you can read in this article, I purchased this little gem on Ebay. I won’t bother listing all its features. You can easily google those up or check out the links in my previous article.

Its main highlights are:

- fast 40mm f/1.7 glass multicoated lens

- mechanical rangefinder with manual focusing

- durable aluminum body

- big, clear viewfinder (though I’m not so sure about this; more on that later)

- shutter-priority shooting aided by a battery-powered light meter

- Quick Loading mechanism that actually works

My very first impression was of solidity. Why don’t they build cameras like this anymore? Back when this model was released (early 70’s), it was a sort of prosumer camera, even though the term wasn’t invented until recently. Anyway, it looks and feels very solid.

 

This is the front of the camera.

I was expecting a smaller and lighter body but I was slightly disappointed. It is much bigger than a modern digital point-and-shoot and the lens sticks out a fair deal. Somehow it looks very compact in pictures but I too was fooled. When I tried to stick it inside a modern camera pouch, I barely managed to squeeze it in and then I had a hard time getting it out. Then I returned that pouch and got another, much bigger one.

 

So the bottom line regarding size is this: it’s slightly smaller than an SLR with a prime lens attached but much larger than a modern digital P&S.

In any case, I find it more discreet than my 300D, even without its battery grip. People have a tendency of overlooking this old film camera when you snap a picture of them on the street. They probably don’t even take you seriously as a photographer. Nowadays you’re not “cool” if you don’t sport the latest XX MP digital camera so the Canonet is a very good decoy. Ha! Fooled ya suckers!

One of the first things I checked was the battery. I pressed the little button next to the viewfinder and sure enough, the battery check LED lit up. Next, I opened the small battery cover on the bottom and inspected the battery visually. Loaded inside was a regular PX625A battery which, I am told, is used for hearing-aids and can be easily found in most stores.

So far so good. Next I peered through the viewfinder and checked out the… well… view. As compared to my 300D, it is much brighter and clearer - by a crapload. The problem however lies in focusing. Since it’s a rangefinder, focusing is done by superimposing 2 images in the viewfinder. There’s a small focusing square in the middle of the frame that is used for that purpose. The difficulty is in actually seeing the two images. I usually need to focus the lens both ways before I can distinguish whether they are over each other or not.

 

Since you can’t see through the lens, another problem is that you can’t judge the DOF. For me this isn’t such a big deal just yet because I try to build a mental relationship between the focusing distance and the aperture and then hope for the best.

I can’t say much about the lens itself. Most agree that it’s a great lens for this type of camera, bla bla. I concur. It looks great. As I’m writing this, I am still waiting to develop my 3^rd roll of film. The first two were taken at night and the lighting conditions weren’t that great but I think the camera handled itself well enough. Regarding the lens, I’m more interested in obtaining that “film look” rather than razor-sharp images. Even though the maximum wide aperture is useful for low-light situations, I’ve heard that the lens is sharper when stopped down. From personal experience, I believe this is true. It doesn’t seem to be incredibly sharp at 1.7 - 2.0 but on the other hand I’ve also used long exposure times such as 1/30 - 1/15 – ¼ so until I develop those pictures taken in daylight, I can’t be certain.

Like I said before, the Quick Load mechanism really works. I haven’t loaded a lotta film cameras in my life but it’s very easy to load this little camera.

One word of caution. The first time I tried to open the rear cover I thought there was something wrong with the camera. I was afraid the door was stuck. To open the cover you need to lift the rewind knob all the way up. What I didn’t know is that you need to use slight force on the knob, pulling it upwards, which acts like a latch release. So basically don’t be afraid to pull that knob until the cover snaps open with a loud click. Don’t use too much brute force though, or you might end up with spare parts. I’m pretty sure all Canonets behave the same. The force is necessary to prevent the cover from opening too easily. However, I would’ve preferred a more elegant solution, namely a proper switch/latch on the side of the camera, doubled by raising the rewind knob. Meaning that even if you accidentally activate the latch while shooting, the cover would stay shut because the rewind knob wouldn’t be up.

 

On the inside of the cover you can see the light seals, made from black foamy material. Unfortunately this material is prone to deteriorating after so many years. Mine is mushy and sticky all over and eroded in a couple of places. The seals don’t look too bad though. I might try to replace them myself some time in the future.

The flash that I got with the Canonet is, evidently, the Canolite. I can’t say anything about it yet because I haven’t used it much. It’s in very good condition and I expect it works just as well. It uses 2 AA batteries.

 

Finally, the original Canon case. It’s not leather and this one shows a fair deal of use. Since I want to keep it intact in the present condition, I purchased a modern digital camera pouch.

 

In shooting, the Canonet is pretty exciting, at least for me. It’s not very ergonomic - I don’t think they had invented ergonomics back then. However, it’s easy to hold, not very light but not too heavy either. It feels very solid in my hands.

Coming from the world of modern auto focus, I sometimes forget I need to focus the lens manually. The focusing lever is not very easy to use though. The worst part is that it’s hard to tell from the viewfinder if the subject is in focus or not. The two images that should be perfectly overlaid are hard to distinguish. Also, I need to watch the small window in the center of the viewfinder, which is damn small.

Two words of caution here. Others before me have warned about this but I have noticed it too so I will mention this. Firstly, after you load the film, make sure you set the ISO. Failure to do so will result in crazy exposures. Secondly, make double sure the lens cap is off when you shoot in manual mode, since the light meter will no longer stop the shutter release from being pressed. And by the way, if exposure values are outside the allowed range, the camera won’t fire (in automatic mode).

Speaking of ISO, one gripe would be that it only goes up to 800. However, this isn’t very serious for me yet since I barely got to shoot 400 film. A more serious complaint would be that the minimum shutter speed is just 1/500 and frankly I’ve already reached its limits on a bright, sunny day, with ISO 200 film.

I feel I should mention something about the “automatic” mode. It’s not as automatic as I feared at the beginning. It’s actually equivalent to shutter priority. Basically you start off with the shutter speed ring set at a certain value, say, 1/30. From there you check the exposure in the viewfinder by half-pressing the shutter release button. You will see a range of apertures from f/1.7 to f/16 and a pointer moving in between these values. Thus, the aperture will be selected based on the shutter speed. When the image is underexposed, the pointer will rise above the 1.7 mark. When the image is overexposed, the pointer will fall below the 16 mark. In both cases the shutter release is locked. That’s a pretty nifty safety feature, since unlike digital cameras, each frame counts.

So that’s the Canonet QL17 G-III in a nutshell. As my first serious film camera I don’t really have a frame of reference for comparison. However, I enjoy the retro feel, the unobtrusiveness (including the quiet operation), the manual settings, bright lens and hell, even the advance lever. The few drawbacks are nothing to worry about and definitely won’t change the fact that the Canonet QL17 G-III remains one of the greatest little “cheap” rangefinders ever.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 3rd, 2006 at 6:12 pm and is filed under Article, Canonet QL17 G-III, Review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.