That One About…

Yes, it happened again. I somehow ended up with another Russian camera – I swear it’s the last for a while. This time it’s the Lubitel 166 Universal TLR, manufactured by LOMO in 1986. It came complete with soft case, strap and Cyrillic manual, and is in good shape mechanically and cosmetically. I made sure to get one with the rectangular mask, though I’ll probably shoot 6×6 square most of the time.

I took it through the usual new-addition walk-through of the yard, my impatience pretty much guaranteeing weak results. The Lubitel is notoriously soft at wide apertures, it was late in the day (an overcast day at that), and the Arista EDU 400 goes crazy with the grain sometimes. Everything seemed to work smoothly, except for the focusing. I knew from research that the ground glass/magnifier combo was something of a joke, and confirmed that right away. I relied on the distance scale as with my “toy” cameras, and got close enough on most frames. A couple of them are below. I’m sure that sunny-day results will be better.

I had a rangefinder-shaped hole in my arsenal.

Friends shot with them and sang their praises. Small, sturdy, whisper-quiet. Great street cameras. They have Leicas. Leicas are German, Expensive. My dream camera at the moment is the vintage Leica M3, but I can’t lay out $2,000 for a package right now. It was recommended that I pursue something cheaper to start, like Canon’s version, the venerable Canonet. Said friends have Canonets, too, and are quite fond of them.

OK, Canonet it was going to be. I hit eBay and poked around over the course of a couple of days. I looked at newer models, older models, but nothing grabbed me. After a little research, I decided what I really needed was the QL17. It had a good service record, and was a nice balance of form and features. I browsed a few, and then Blue popped up. It was an original QL 17 with the 45mm 1.7 lens, not the “New” nor the G-III. The price was right, and the condition was good. And it was blue. A previous owner had decided to recover the body in a cadet-blue leatherette — a unique look, to be sure.

I took it out of the box and examined it, excited as always when something new arrives. It was clean, the glass was pristine, and the leather case was complete and functional. I pored over the photocopied manual pages, trying to make sense of the foreign controls and concepts. Hmm – not… clear. I loaded a roll and took it into the back yard (where it seems all of my “first rolls” are shot, due to my lack of patience over anything else) and got my 24 frames, but as I finished I knew I wasn’t going to be happy with the results. A couple of hours later, suspicions we’re confirmed. Exposure, focus – all over the place. There and then, I developed a phobia. That was June of 2010.

Blue sat in its case for a long time. I passed it daily, planning to load another roll in anticipation of a trip out that I never made. Then, last week, one of my rangefinder-equipped friends asked how I was liking the Canonet and mentioned he’d not seen any output from it. I’ve been working on self-challenges lately, so I promised him and myself that, a week hence, I would post frames.

Sunday came, and I set aside time. I checked the Canonet’s battery — dead. It’s only needed for the meter, so no big deal, and finding a replacement for the now-outlawed mercury cell is more hassle than I want. I needed to practice with my Sekonic meter anyway. I loaded some (now discontinued – ugh) Legacy Pro 100 and headed downtown. I took my time, metered as best I could figure for the overcast day, and dialed in on the weird focusing scheme. If you want to know something about rangefinder focusing, take a look here. This time around, I felt like I was getting it. I hoped what came out of the tank agreed with that assessment.

I was looking at the whole thing as a test, so the pressure to produce anything stunning was low. Overall, the results were decent. I did figure out the focus situation, though I could make some improvements. Exposure wasn’t too far off in most cases. I came out with a few shots of my little town that I was OK sharing, so that tells the story.  A few more outings and I’ll be on a better footing. In a few weeks, Blue will have another rangefinder with which to confer; a Zorki 4K — a Russian Leica clone — is on its way from the Ukraine.