Rangefinder repair...

serjical_strike

Hello, im just wondering does anyone know of places in Ireland that can fix/replace the yellow focussing patch on a canonette QL17 Giii or is it a lost cause.? its there but barely and makes focussing a right pain in the a***. Any info would be great

pete4130

I only got mine (rare black QL GIII) repaired a few weeks ago in Sydney (I know a bit far from you) and any older/analogue stuff is rare here, so finding somewhere to get it fixed was lucky. The guy I went to was well versed in fixing them (although it was misfiring very 2nd or 3rd shot so will have to bring it back to get that sorted). It did cost me AU$190 to get repaired though.

I think if you have a good one then its worth getting it repaired. Usually its the shutter that sticks on them (the old lube dries up and gets crusty and jams it. You can TRY to fix it yourself by removing the front elements and components of the lens to get at the leaf shutter and using lighter fluid to clean it out. It's worked for me only once out of 3 cameras and you need the right tools and its easy to F*** it up and cross thread something and/or wonder why you still have a lens element when its all put back together and not know why or where its meant to go!

The guy who fixed mine cleaned up the focussing paralax screen but the light meter is still hard to make out. Try Zerohamster or call Gunns and see if they'd know anyone.

serjical_strike

pete4130 wrote: »

I only got mine (rare black QL GIII) repaired a few weeks ago in Sydney (I know a bit far from you) and any older/analogue stuff is rare here, so finding somewhere to get it fixed was lucky. The guy I went to was well versed in fixing them (although it was misfiring very 2nd or 3rd shot so will have to bring it back to get that sorted). It did cost me AU$190 to get repaired though.

I think if you have a good one then its worth getting it repaired. Usually its the shutter that sticks on them (the old lube dries up and gets crusty and jams it. You can TRY to fix it yourself by removing the front elements and components of the lens to get at the leaf shutter and using lighter fluid to clean it out. It's worked for me only once out of 3 cameras and you need the right tools and its easy to F*** it up and cross thread something and/or wonder why you still have a lens element when its all put back together and not know why or where its meant to go!

The guy who fixed mine cleaned up the focussing paralax screen but the light meter is still hard to make out. Try Zerohamster or call Gunns and see if they'd know anyone.

hey, thanks for the reply. Everything is working fantastic on the camera but its just hard to focus due to the patch being dim, its workable but just not as fast to use as i was hoping it would be. i tried the black tape trick on the viewing window and that has helped slightly but i still wonder if it can be replaced, ill get onto gunns in the next few days, cheers

pete4130

Yeah, I've had a few QL's. Some have really bright clear focusing screens and some just suck completely. After my service mine was a lot better.