Thursday, April 19, 2012

A Little Canon QL-17 Love

Thank you, Denis!

I had previously owned one of these fine little rangefinders for about a decade, and sold it over a year ago, complete with the matching flash and manual. I think I paid all of $20 for everything. Well, I sold it after I obtained a Minolta Hi-Matic 7S and fell in love with it. Silly me, I should have kept it. Nothing against the Minolta, but the Canon QL-17 is smaller and the aperture/shutter speeds are easier to set. So, even though I sold that Canon for about 3x what I paid for it, I regretted it later on. Well, Denis Dolgachev, a fellow member of the Ann Arbor Area Crappy Camera Club moved to Baltimore, MD and divested himself of a few crappy cameras. I ended up with a very nice example of the QL-17 with new light seals, a working meter, and in really nice cosmetic condition. That should not have surprised me, as Denis always takes good care of his camera gear. I was eager to try out the camera so I loaded it with a roll of XP-2 chromogenic C-41 b&w film and took it along on the road trip with Marc and John a few weekends ago. The camera appears to work pretty well, and I am quite happy to have one again, especially one in such nice condition. Here are a few images from the first roll of film.

I shot this while waiting for the bus across the street from where I work.

Inside the Cavis Grill. Marc is paying for lunch. Port Huron, MI.

Two All-American boys. Port Huron.

Yep, whatever floats your boat.

The images look fine, and overall, the camera appears to operate normally. It stays in my backpack from now on.

2 comments:

eric festinger said...

Ha! Welcome back to your Canonet! Enjoy and cherish it ;-)

Jim said...

Every camera collection needs a QL17, and every collected QL17 deserves to be well used! Glad you got another one.