My New Arrival! - Canonet QL17

Today, only 2 days after I made the winning bid on eBay, I took arrival of a new addition to my camera family. The Canonet QL17 was first introduced in 1965 as the flagship to Canon's 'Quick Load' range, in the 17 years that it was produced they released 3 iterations of the compact rangefinder. My version is the second of the three.


The first job was to clean off the 40 years of dirt that had accumulated on the camera body and strap. I can only say that I was shocked and appalled at the seller for not cleaning this amount of dirt off the camera. During this process the viewfinder and film counter windows fell off revealing deteriorated glue, after chipping this away the windows are again glued firmly in place.

As I removed the Canon branded lens cap it was a pleasant surprise to see the 40mm 1.7 lens protected with a 48mm Toshiba SL-C filter, almost as pleasant as the bright and clear viewfinder.

Now to test the focusing and shutter. The focus lever is smooth with a relatively short swing, the green tinted focus window is clear and easy to use in bright light though slightly more challenging in dimmer conditions. The film advance lever feels mechanical, not smooth at all, but does the job perfectly well. And now for the shutter release, the reason I needed a rangefinder, a firm press of the release triggers a leaf shutter that is incredibly quiet; perfect for candid shooting. A pleasingly underwhelming experience.

All that's left now is to replace the light seals, a job common across most cameras of this era, and then to finally run a roll of black and white film through it! Keep updated.