Canon 7 or 7s meters

[Kodachromeguy]

Hi Canon 7 users, I think this is a superb piece of engineering. But:

1. 7 users, do your selenium meters work and are they linear from low light to bright? Some of the 'Bay vendors claim the meters work, but I am skeptical. After all, they are 50 years old.

2. 7s users, do your CDS meters work? Did you need to have the cells replaced?

3. Any issues with wrinkled shutter curtains?

Thanks!

 

[Jim Jones]

The meter in my Canon 7 works, although I question it's accuracy. The shutter seems to work well at higher speeds, although erratically at low speeds. The curtain is quite wrinkled. The camera was used little after moving up to Leicas in the late 1960s. My Leica M4, bought in 1970, looks terrible, but works fine despite much hard use.

 

[Patrick Robert James]

I have a couple of 7's and a parts body. The meter on one works fine and IIRC is accurate. The meter on the other doesn't work, but did albeit a little off. Probably a dirty connection or something. Have to pop the top. The meters aren't that delineated anyway. I use them as a suggestion. For negative film they are fine.

One has wrinkles in the shutter curtain, the other doesn't. Wrinkles have no effect. The one with the wrinkles has been completely overhauled. It is super smooth. Shutter is 1/6th of a stop slow across all speeds. Not worth messing with. The difference in the two makes me believe that most Canon 7's out there have never been cleaned.

They are great cameras if you ask me. The overhauled one I have is smooth as butter. Smoother than my M3. Probably the best deal going in rangefinders these days. If you get a good one mechanically then you are set. One of these days I'll probably buy a 7s just for the heck of it.

 

[btaylor]

My Canon 7 meter responds to light, maybe it is accurate at some light levels? I would not trust it. The little Gossen Digisix in my pocket I do trust.
My Canon 7s meter does not work. I find Sunny 16 works pretty great outdoors, indoors I would count on a meter I trust (or the one on my phone- because I always have it with me.
Both of the 7's shutters have a little wrinkle, both are accurate at low speeds, one of them (can't remember which) tops out at a measured 1/300, but I can live with that because it is consistent.
Great underappreciated cameras IMO.

 

[David888]

7 meters are notoriously unreliable but after 60 years what can you expect? Mine works only in the high sensitive mode and it is off. I also have a 7s with a dead meter. The Japanese seller claimed it was working and "died" en route (????). I use a handheld meter or just my cell phone meter when I shoot. Other than that the cameras are built like a tank and seldom fail.

 

[gone]

Working and accurate are located in two different worlds. The selenium meters aren't exactly linear either, nor are the others to my knowledge, but often they run 1 or 2 stops slow. So if you reset for that you should be fine. Having said that, the 7 cameras have bad meters by most standards now. None of mine were even close to being accurate, and their shutter curtains looked like hell too, but they worked OK.

It really just depends on the meter. I had a Leningrad selenium meter, and it was dead on accurate even in low light because it was like brand new. The original owner must have hardly used it, so the cell was rarely exposed to light.

 

[__Brian]

Both of mine work and are accurate. The cameras were kept in fitted cases- so the meter cell was kept in the dark.

I remember calibrating one of them many years ago against my Nikon F2AS.