Batteries, batteries, batteries.

I did a lot of reading about batteries before I purchased my camera and despite establishing which battery I had to buy for my QL17 there remained a lot of confusion about how Today's Alkaline batteries effect meter readings.


Back in the '60s when the Canonet was first launched the standard battery was a mercuric oxide cell, a battery containing Mercury. In recent years these Mercury batteries have been banned in much of Europe and North America, the result was confusion over what to replace the outlawed batteries with. The answer was an Alkaline cell.

However, the new Alkaline cells have a changed voltage compared to their Mercury counterpart, in the QL17's case 1.5V compared to 1.35V. So how does this affect the meter readings? In my own experience I have seen little change. I have done numerous tests to compare the readings of my 20D, AE-1 and QL17, the first two of which produce excellent exposures. While the meter readings of each camera didn't always match they were all within 1 stop, enough for me to trust the QL17's judgement.

I can't guarantee that everyone will experience the same results but I can say that if you want a new battery for your QL17 then you'll need a 1.5V L1560.

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.