Canon VT
The Canon VT is a rangefinder camera released by Canon in 1956. Until then, Canon had a history of making slightly modified Leica copies. The release of the VT showed for the first time that Canon could be a leader in 35mm rangefinder design.
 | |
| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Type | 35mm rangefinder camera |
| Lens | |
| Lens mount | M39 Leica screw mount |
| Focusing | |
| Focus | manual |
| Exposure/metering | |
| Exposure | manual |
Canon kept the Leica screw mount on the VT, and little else. They changed the film advance from a top-mounted knob to a bottom-mounted trigger. The tripod socket was moved to mount a trigger wind grip. They added a swing-open back making the camera easier to load than previous bottom loading Canons.
The VT had a focal-plane shutter with a cloth curtain; shutter speeds were from 1s to 1/1000, plus T and B. Available Canon lenses ranged from 25mm to 800mm, with some as fast as f/1.2. FP, M, and X flash synchronisation was supported.
It had a three-position viewfinder with rotating prisms, which could be set to 35mm, 50mm and RF. In the RF setting, accessory shoe-mounted viewfinders with automatic parallax correction would be used.
See also
- Canon 39mm screw lenses
External links
- Cameraquest's Canon VT page
- A Canon VT page in a Leica-history site
- Canon 50/1.2 lens with discussion of the VT, by Davidde Stella. (Via Wayback, therefore slow. Choice of this particular Wayback image is arbitrary. The original URL is http://www.davidde.com/articles/canon5012.html .)
- Canon VT at Sylvain Halgand's www.collection-appareils.fr
This article was originally based on "Canon VT" in Camerapedia, retrieved on 4 August 2007 under the GNU Free Documentation License.