STREET PHOTOGRAPHER MADISON WI | CANONET Q17 GIII REVIEW
So I’ve heard some good words on the street regarding Canonet Q17 GIII from several film street photographers and decided to give it a try. These vintage 35mm film rangefinders were produced aroun 1969 in Japan, took 35mm film and s lot of these cameras managed to survive till these days.
I won this one on e-bay for around $30+shipping and handling (you should be able to pick one up at the local thrift store for about $20). From e-bay seller pictures it appeared that light seals will need to be replaced- which wasn’t a big deal. When I received the camera it turned out I was right. Changed the old sticky light seals, gave camera a good cleaning, loaded it with Arista Premium B&W 400 and was ready to go.
I LOVE this camera! I currently have about 4-5 other rangefinders in da house, but as a street photographer Madison WI I definitely would choose this Canonet Q17 GIII over the others. Can’t beat 1.7 aperture, “shutter priority” mode (even though i would prefer “aperture priority”), easy handling. Can beat ability to shoot all manual if battery goes dead. I was very satisfied how the pictures turned out, event though half of the film was shot in low light indoor conditions.
Fixed 40mm is just about perfect focal length for street photography. As a street photographer Madison WI I appreciate how quiet this rangefinder is.
Size of the camera is just about right- not too big (like Yashica Electro 35 GSN is), but not too small (like Olympus XA is). Camera feels nice and solid- weights just a bit over 600g.
I find that having “Shutter or Aperture priority” modes in street photography cameras helps me a lot as sometimes full manual dial might be to much to deal with. Especially if you need to get of your bike, park it, dial it all in, etc.
Metering works great in 95% of the cases. And these 5% are very easy to predict if you’re familiar with camera you’re using and know how meter works.
(to be continued)
Connect with Paulius Musteikis, street photographer Madison WI, on Facebook or Google+. Contact info: phone: (608) 239-4199, e-mail: contact@pauliusmusteikis.com.