Canon Canonet QL 19
by Karen Nakamura
Overview and Personal Comments
The Canonet QL 19 is a coupled-rangefinder, leaf-shuttered 35mm camera with fully automatic exposure. Using the text or images on this website without permission on an ebay auction or any other site is a violation of federal law.
The Canonet QL 19 was released in March 1965 by Canon and sports a 45mm f/1.9 Canon lens. The Canon Museum notes that its original retail price was ¥20,800 with an additional ¥1,800 for the leather case.
There was a QL 17 version released at the same time. It had a slightly larger lens, a 45mm f/1.7 and was priced ¥3000 more, or ¥23800. The f/1.7 lens was made with 6 elements in 5 groups; as compared to 5 elements in 4 groups of the f/1.9.
The Canonet came to fame with the movie Pecker. It's been called the Poor Woman's Leica (or Poor Man's Leica if you're a chauvinist). It's small, light, reliable, quiet, the lens is fairly bright and contrasty, and it costs about 1/100 of a Leica M series. It's been found in garage sales and goodwill stores for much less than its real value.
Interesting quirks
The Electronic Eye (EE) is mounted right above the lens element. This allows for metering through filters without having to dial in a compensation value. The camera can be full-manual or shutter-speed priority automatic exposure. Inside the viewfinder, the camera will display the aperture it is setting (f/1.9 to f/16). It's a very nice finder with parallax compensation
Technical Details
|
Camera
Name |
Canonet QL 19 | |
|---|---|---|
|
Manufacturer |
Canon, Inc. | |
|
Place
of Manufacture |
Japan | |
|
Date
of Manufacture |
1965.3 | |
|
Focusing
System |
Coupled
rangefinder w/ parallax compensation Lens use helicoid focusing |
|
|
Lens |
45mm, f/1.9, Canon SE lens (5 elements in 4 groups) Minimum focusing distance = 0.8 meters (~3 feet) Right focusing (infinity on right side) |
|
|
Shutter |
Copal
SV shutter 1 - 1/500 |
|
|
Metering
System |
CdS
cell mounted above lens on lensmount Needle in viewfinder gives current aperture EV 2.5 - 19 (at ISO 100) |
|
|
Apertures |
f/1.9 - f/16 |
|
|
Flash |
External hot-shoe only and front PC connection Hotshoe has extra pin for dedicated Canolite D flash |
|
|
Film
type / speeds |
Type 135 film (35mm standard) ASA 25 to 400 |
|
|
Battery
type |
1.35v PX625 mercury-silver | |
|
Dimensions
and weight |
140 x 79 x 33 mm, 800 g | |
|
Retail
price |
¥20800 in 1965 | |
| Note: Using the text, table, or images on this site in an ebay auction without permission is a violation of your ebay Terms of Service. I will report you to ebay if I discover such a violation taking place. This may result in your account being cancelled. I also reserve the right to file claim for civil penalties. | ||
About Canon
Canon started out its life as Seiki Kohgaku Kenkyuujo (Precision Optical Research Company). Its first goal was to produce domestic inexpensive Leica clones, and it released the Kwanon, its first camera in 1934. Interestingly, they used Nikon lenses since Nikon was already established as an optical lens manufacturer and was not making any of its own camera bodies at that time. Canon soon gained the ability to make their own lenses and never looked back. Nikon also went on to produce some reasonably popular cameras of its own as well.
The name 'Canon' comes from the Buddhist deity Kwanon and early Canon cameras were actually spelled 'Kwanon' and the lenses were named 'Kyasapa' after another deity.
Side note: Canon is my favorite Japanese company along with Honda. I actually interned for Canon Japan (ok, Canon Sales Japan, a part of the Canon keiretsu) during a summer in college and loved my coworkers to death. They keep coming out with innovations that take your breath away.
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