The Canon Canonet 28 is a 35mm rangefinder-type camera released in 1971, and remained in production until 1976. The camera was compact and provided a lot of manual control, including stepless shutter speed adjustments. The camera was very good at taking outdoor and landscape shots, but its flash photography mechanism was not as efficient, and the camera did not have a pop-up flash.
Canolite D
The Canonet 28 came with a dedicated flash unit, the Canolite D, which had an extra pin in the hot shoe to provide metering. The Canolite D syncs automatically with the shutter of the camera, providing automatic flash exposure compensation to get very accurate shots. Looking through the viewfinder with the Canolite D connected, the photographer would see an exposure indicator. If the mark is in the red zone at the top, the subject is too far away, and if it is in the red zone at the bottom, the subject is too close, so you have to change your position to take the picture.
Other Flash Units
By connecting the optional hot shoe adapter to the camera, the Canonet 28 could work with other flash units. You placed the flash inside the adapter and ran a sync cord from the flash into the adapter. When used with other flash units than the Canolite D, the Canonet 28 defaulted to a shutter speed of 1/30th of a second. You then had to manually set the aperture, based on the formula of shooting distance/guide number. If the subject you were shooting was out of the proper range for the chosen exposure, you couldn't fire the flash.
Canon Flashes
Since you can use the Canonet 28 with any manual flash unit with the hot shoe adapter, photographers have a wide choice. The Canon 244T is one simple non-TTL flash unit that will work with the Canonet 28. As long as the flash unit lets you set the flash guide number, any flash will work with the Canonet 28, but it will not be the simple flash photography of modern SLRs.
Tags: flash unit, work with, Canolite Canonet, Canon Canonet, flash photography, guide number