This video is perfect - I bought a lovely black QL17 GIII from Japan and the focus was ever-so-slightly off - would have been loads of hassle to send it back for adjustment so I'm really pleased I could do it myself (with the help of your video). Many, many thanks
I have the "new QL17" the model before the G3, and I believe that the adjustment requires removal of the top cover. That's not a problem. But the eccentric screw called out in the service manual won't be easy to adjust. It's mounted on a slightly moving part and is small and tight. Unless I have this all wrong, I don't think I'll be able to get horizontal/infinity to look correct in the rangefinder without some special knowledge.
I really enjoy shooting with rangefinders, it’s the alignment aspect that scares me off from heavily using them or buying one. Great video, thanks for sharing!
Really awesome video! I wish I knew how to do this on my medium format rangefinders. I have 3 Fujifilm Rangefinders that are over 40 years old and I'd love to adjust them all.
OMG. Thank you! I could never figure out how to remove the rear adjustment screw cap. It's terrific to learn that it unscrews. I cut a small piece of Gaff tape, and folded inside out to get a grip on the cap. It screwed out easily. I like your tape on film plane method too. :D
I was actually wondering how you would go about opening the access to the back alignment screw. I had a Yashica Lynx 1000 and it was just another screw like the ones that held the top plate on. Glad to know I can just unscrew it by hand. And I didn't even know about the one on the top under the hot-shoe part. I have a QL19 that just has a cold-shoe, but I didn't even realize the metal could come off of there. Looking at it now though, it makes sense. I'm still gonna have to take off the top plate though, which is what i was originally planning on doing for re-calibrating the rangefinder because I need to clean the viewfinder glass, but this is nice to know for in the future if I ever have to do it again. :)
Pablo Vásquez It would be great if that technique worked, but unfortunately I’ve found the distance scales on the lenses I’ve tested to be off by quite a bit - measuring focus at the film plane is the only way to be sure about accuracy
It provides a translucent surface for the image from the lens to be projected onto - you will need something to perform this function to do a proper calibration. If you're interested in what's happening conceptually, you can google the terms 'camera ground glass'. Good luck!
Hello, can you help me? I bought a Konica C35 (rangefinder) in pretty good condition. I have tried the rangefinder focusing at infinity, but it focuses a bit before reaching the infinity mark. If I keep turning to infinity it loses focus. So, I disassembled the rangefinder, I've cleaned it carefully and it's very good, very clear. So now I want to adjust the rangefinder. 1- I placed the camera on a tripod with a view of a distant building. 2- I opened the back cover and placed semi-transparent tape on the plane of the film. 3- I placed the selector on B (Bulb) 4- I have loaded, shoot and left the shoot button pressed. 5- Now, problem. Looking through the viewfinder, it behaves as I mentioned before. But, when I look at the shot of the film, projected on the semi-transparent tape, the distant building comes into perfect focus when I focus at 1 meter. When I focus to infinity it is completely out of focus !! How can this be? In other words, looking at the distant building, when I match the images in the center in the viewfinder, everything is blurry on the film. When I fully separate the images in the viewfinder by turning the ring to the 1 meter position, on the film plane the building appears perfectly focused! I'm lost.
hi. forget about the frosted glass and the lens. Frosted glass is only for lens adjustment. only the viewfinder and two screws. set the focus ring to infinity and adjust the vertical and horizon through the viewfinder. That's all !!!
Thanks for the video! I thought, where could there be such a hole in my Konica Deluxe F ..? And I found under the cap with a crossed circle! Now I wonder if I can calibrate when I have a film in my camera ... So measure the first 0.9 meters and so on, looking at the spot only ..? How could you advise? Yours sincerely 👍 😀
My second aunt gave me a Chinese made rangefinder, Phenix 205-B, and the focus is inaccurate. I’m not sure if this procedure is still applicable to my camera.
Most of the procedure should be similar, though the accessing the adjustment screws sounds more complicated with that camera. I've found some reference to the procedure in the last comment in the following link: www.rangefinderforum.com/classics/forum/messages/20735/13423.html?1255878846
Oh, I wish I knew! Unfortunately I don't have a Ricoh 500G :(. I'd try some creative googling, often I can find a picture or something that helps me out in situations like this.
With this camera, and all the other rangefinders I've worked on, if you get the lens and rangefinder synchronized at any one point of focus, it will be well synchronized at all the other points of focus. If that's not the case, then there are bigger problems with the camera, or it's a very different mechanism. Also, with this camera, I've found that it works best to do the calibration at a fairly close focusing range since a part of the rangefinder mechanism gets in the way of the adjustment screw when focused towards infinity. Good luck!
@@afafaf3589 mannn. I ask this because today I did this (close range) with my Canon P. Used a electronic microscope and everything to check the sharpness on the piece of tape and when I checked the rangefinder at infinity it was wayyyyy off.
@@grephenson The one piece of advice I can offer is to make sure your imaging device is perfectly focused on the surface of the tape before focusing the camera you're trying to calibrate. When I use a setup like that, I make a mark on the 'tape' and focus first on that mark so I can be sure that the imaging device will produce the sharpest image precisely the at the film plane (i.e. the tape). And you'll want to make sure that the microscope isn't touching the tape itself - since that tape needs to be precisely aligned with the the film plane for this to work. If something puts pressure on the tape and displaces it ever so slightly, that can translate into a very big focusing error. Good luck!
It is! A rangefinder like this one that's mechanically coupled to the lens can fall out of calibration, so that the rangefinder's indicated point of focus is different than what the lens actually has in focus. A symptom of this is when photos that were carefully focused using the rangefinder are slightly out of focus in the final image. The rangefinder and lens can fall out of calibration for any number of reasons, like a bump or a drop bending one of the linkages, or an adjustment screw coming loose. If your camera focuses great, don't worry and just enjoy it! But, for what it's worth, the three rangefinder cameras I've owned were badly out of calibration when I got them, and only made sharp images reliably after calibration. Good luck!
hello, i have my canonet ql17 and if I move the focusing ring as far as it goes the target (mostly landscape or anything far away) is slightly out of focus. However, if I move it as far as the little dot before the infinity symbol, it's perfectly in focus image. is it normal to move a bit the focusing ring before the infinity to have the sharpest image possible for infinity objects?
The magic of cinema The back hole that's covered by the screw-in piece is where you adjust the vertical alignment of the rangefinder - you can use the same procedure as the horizontal alignment to do it, but since the vertical alignment doesn't really affect focus accuracy, it's not absolutely necessary to have it set perfectly (so I left mine as-is).
Thanks for replying I have a different problem now. It's focused close but off at infinity. I noticed there's a screw in the front that controls the mask position but cant find any documentation on it's correct position and how to properly center it (minimum focus distance or infinity). Picture shown. Ideas? creativetrace.com/Canonet_repair.jpg
Hmm, can I ask you to clarify: Does the focusing patch correctly align at both infinity and close distance when correctly focused (as confirmed by using tape or ground glass across the film plane)? How could you tell that the mask position needs to be adjusted?
I've not checked both using the loupe. I just checked the close distance with tape and infinity using the yellow double image in the viewfinder. That is a good point. That's when I thought it needed a bit of a nudge when infinity didn't align or anything past 15 feet. If your focus is correct at both do you mind sharing a picture of the position of your screw with the top off? Thank you!
I don't have the camera anymore unfortunately, but APUG.org would be your best bet if you really need that info. However, the infinity mark on my camera was incorrect at infinity even though the rangefinder patch correctly aligned when the image was sharp on the tape/ground glass - so I just ignored the infinity marking on the lens and all was well. (The position of the mask shouldn't affect the focus alignment)
@@pieterdegelder6563 I see, thanks. If somebody has access to the service manual for these, there likely is a trick to keeping the shutter open that the repair technicians of the time could use when calibrating the lens/rangefinder. Personally, since I don't have access to that information, what I would do is set the camera so that you get the longest exposure times possible - since I believe the models you're working with emphasize autoexposure, this would mean setting the iso/asa to the lowest possible setting, and putting a piece of dark tape (ideally black gaffer's tape, but in a pinch black vinyl electrical tape) over the light sensor to fool the camera's circuitry into thinking it's very dark outside. This will likely give you a second or more at a time to adjust the focus of the lens to its optimal position for your focusing target. Then once the focus is set, you can leave the lens/shutter as-is and adjust the rangefinder. I hope that helps!
I'd tend to agree that that's the ideal approach (would save you the 2-step adjust-confirm process laid out here) - however when this model of camera is set to infinity, a part of the rangefinder mechanism blocks access to the adjustment screw, so the demonstrated approach is the only viable option in this case :)
@@jackplissken5328 Apart from this quirk, the calibration process is in fact relatively pleasant - not all cameras provide nice external access ports, and some adjustment mechanisms are far more finicky to get set correctly
I service Canonets on daily basis and can tell you that this guy has no clue what he’s doing. It’s virtually impossible to adjust the rangefinder in Canonet the way that he’s showing. Thanks to YT “experts” like this one, about a half of Canonets that I’m getting are messed up by users.
I've never claimed to be an expert - it's pretty clear that I'm not working in an optics lab here. But this approach has definitely worked, and I've successfully calibrated several rangefinders types using a similar process. In a sense I agree though: If you're not handy with this kind of thing and you want the best results, definitely send your camera to a reputable shop (if you can afford it). Can I ask what you would do differently for a DIY procedure? *Update: I've added a disclaimer to the directions - I'd like to believe that people know what they're getting themselves into, but maybe those 'do not eat silica gel' messages are there for a reason. Cheers dude* *Update 2: Looking again at the directions, I had already put a bit of a disclaimer in at step 10, where you're actually inserting the screwdriver into the mechanism, but I'll leave the additional disclaimer up at the top for extra clarity*
