I think like many of us with lots of time inside, we are trying to find things to take our mind off the huge change we have swirling around us. This post is about my latest little project.

I really love photography, both looking at a great photographers work and taking pictures in the hopes that I will at some point be 10 percent as good. For years I have had an old Canon Rangefinder sitting in a basket. It was my dad’s camera and he had given it to me over twenty years ago. I had never used it, but I loved its retro look and thought that if I ever had the space I could put it out on a shelf. One recent evening, I started watching Youtube and a Rangefinder video came into my feed. I immediately recognised the camera as almost the exact same one I had hidden away. So as you do, I watched about five more videos and pulled out the old camera looking it over. That of course was just the first night, but I thought maybe I could get this almost fifty year old camera working again.

Of course, this isn’t just a matter of buying some film and going out for a shoot; a fifty year old camera needs a little bit of work to get going. This specific camera is a Canonet QL-19. AThe QL stands for quick load as it has an easy way to get the film loaded for the time. The 19 refers to the aperture of the lens can go up to F1.9 As I had seen in a few of the videos, one of the common issues is that the light seals disintegrate. Sure enough, when I opened up my camera, it was full of little errant bits of rubber foam and the seals were compressed and bubbly. Also while there was still a battery in the battery compartment it didn’t work and as I saw online the original batteries were no longer made as they contained mercury (I am sure the one in there was also not a mercury battery based on the number on it). So when I hopped on Amazon and started to see what supplies I could get.

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To complete the work I needed some craft foam, new batteries, some glue, and of course, film! Now the one thing that I think all of us have learned over the last many weeks is exercising our patience. I put in my order and it told me it would arrive a month later on April 30th. No worries, I can wait. Anyways the shipping gods must have been looking down upon me and it arrived just ten days later. Not Prime fast, but not too bad. I could barely contain my excitement to start working on it, knowing the whole time that it may not work at all. That said, the first thing I did was pop in the new battery to see if anything happened. With my eye to the viewfinder I saw the light meter spring to life. (The before and during photos are below)