Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Canon Canonet GIII Q17


I've been playing with this Canonet for awhile now. I'm impressed by the sharpness and contrast of its 40 mm lens. These photos were taken with an ISO 200 film in heavy overcast at the Ronde Van Oakkenberg cyclocross event a couple of weeks ago. I dropped off the film for processing at our local Drug Warehouse where they offer a CD with the prints. The files are about 5 megs and I've reduced them for display here. They've also been sharpened slightly.


This is an enlargement from the full size photo below. I was surprised at the fine detail at this magnification. Any larger, however, and you could see the grain.

This afternoon, I loaded this camera with an ISO400 black and white film. And I spun a yellow Y2 filter on the front of the lens. I know I can get the same effect by using color film and altering the images in Picasa, but I want to experiment. I've had very little experience with black and white film.

I won another camera at auction last week, a Yashica Electro 35GT - a very sexy all black rangefinder camera that's about as old as the Canon. One big plus is that much of the maintenance and repair information is on-line, so I'm planning to work on this one myself. But first, the old Minolta Himatic 9 will be going under the knife - my first victim. It's expendable.

Wish me (and the Minolta!) some luck.

3 Comments:

Blogger Steve A said...

Please! Stop! I'm not ready to go back to my Praktica!

8:24 PM  
Blogger Ed W said...

Sorry, Steve. I'm not trying to make you crazy. But I do like these old rangefinder cameras. I'm going to do a post about the Yashica ME-1 in the next couple of days. It's an extremely simply camera designed for autoexposure only. And it uses zone focusing. Still, the lens is sharp and contrasty - not bad for a camera that's close to fifty. But the frame counter doesn't work. It needs seals, and the battery expires quickly even when I remember to put the lens cover on. I'm toying with the idea of adding a switch for the battery circuit. But if you'd like to play with it, let me know and I'll send it to you.

9:56 PM  
Blogger Steve A said...

You're a married guy. What would YOUR wife say if weird cameras suddenly started appearing at YOUR house courtesy of the Internet? I thought so...

11:20 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home