On paper the Canonete should be a wonderful camera. The main attraction of course is a 45mm f1.9 lens. The sleek top plate, a nice viewfinder, and a selenium cell meter around the lens that therefore compensated for filter factor exposure as it too would be looking through the filter – all good stuff. In 1961 this must have seemed a wonderful camera.
The bottom of the camera reveals the “off to one side” tripod socket around which is the release to un-lock the back door, which is relased by the small button. The wind on lever, is rather finger like and has a tip that bends down to ease wind on. That all works fine although it needs a hole in the correct place in the “ever ready” case. Same is true of the rewind lever. The Copal shutter offers speeds from 500th down to 1 second, and the meter can cope with 10-400 asa. There were three versions of this camera and the fact this example allows 400 asa means that it is the slightly later version 3.
I popped in a film and took a walk to give it a go!
I can imagine in 1961 if moving up from a “folder” or even a box camera this camera would seem like a dream. For me photographing in 2025, I found it clunky, difficult, and awkward in just about all departments. First of all the wind on. It’s not unique, the Kodak Retinette 1b for example. Some how the winder on that camera seems natural while on the Canonet it feels awkward to me. This wasn’t helped by the fact this particular example seemed to have a slightly dodgy shutter. Slightly odd in that I noticed it while trying to make a vertical image, and after developing the film it was dropping frames (sometimes 2) then on taking a horizontal image would start working ok again!
Another issue for me was flaring, especially on the left hand of the image. I was using this on a rather dull day, so not shooting into the sun – just slightly back lit would do it. Finally the viewfinder, as bright and easy as it is, it didn’t seem particularly accurate to me. All in all, not a camera I either enjoyed using or got on with!
S.H.O.U.T. 
I would probably get annoyed by the bottom winder too. I know that Canon liked it at that moment and thought it was better than a top mount, but there’s a reason why 99% of cameras don’t do it that way.
I’d say give another Canonet a shot. I know it’s cliche, but I love my QL 17 G-III. It’s currently in the shop, though, after a drop put it out of commission.
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Hi Shawn – As I said I was attracted by the lens as much as anything, but even that flared! The fact the shutter was dodgy didn’t help, but I found it clunky enough anyway. I’ll stick with the OM1 (this week!!!) 🙂 – Cheers Andy
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