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Wanna See What’s Inside a Canon P?
4 Nov2009
This camera was sent to me for repair. The second(closing) blind of the shutter wasn’t closing anymore.
I suspected broken ribbons. It could however be something else, so the camera had to be stripped to see what really happened.. Getting the Canon P out of its shell was surprisingly easy 
Removing the four main screws on the outer shell, the selftimer lever assembly, the lens mount, and a couple more screws under it, will take the shell off.
One of the ribbons which pulled the second blind home had snapped.
Titanium foil was used by Canon for their model “P” and “7″ RFs, in place of the usual rubber-coated cloth. The titanium foil can wrinkle from fatigue. Or in this case, stress from being stuck and then being pulled out to be mended.
The top of the camera is very complicated. This scary looking part has the shutter speed controls, the wind/rewind clutch, frame counter, shutter release, and film advance/transport.
And this is the part which gives the floating framelines. It’s semi-silvered inside.
The broken ribbon was replaced with a new one. The intact upper ribbon was unglued so that a new one can be patterned after it. The shutter was no longer disassembled. The ribbons were threaded through the rollers, attached to the lath, and the other end reglued to the outer roller. Stitched in red:
Under the camera is the complicated Canon RF flash sync circuit. Disassembly not recommended!
4 Responses to Wanna See What’s Inside a Canon P?
Phil M.
December 30th, 2009 at 10:10
I have a camera like this that has Titanium foil curtains. The curtains needs to be replaced, what do you recommend? My repairman suggested I replace it with cloth but I would like to keep it original.
Thanks
admin
December 30th, 2009 at 18:41
If the Titanium foils are still OK (it will be very hard to tear or puncture them), leave them as is. Canon metal foil shutters are prone to crumpling though. That’s why many of Canon P and Canon 7 have crumpling visible on their shutter blinds. The crumples don’t affect the shutter’s function. At worst, they only look bad, but otherwise, they should function perfectly. If you must replace them, cloth shutters (the right replacement type, such as those from Aki-asahi.com (http://aki-asahi.com/store/html/curtains/shutter-curtain.php and not cloth cut from changing bags) should work properly. In many ways, cloth shutter curtains can be better than metal foil shutters.
Angel
June 1st, 2010 at 01:40
I have found a rather cheap canon P(168$),with one shutter curtain damaged.I am wondering if the replacement with cloth would be a good choice.
I will probably do it myself.
I think that the sound of the cloth shutter will be a bit quieter…
(which doesn’t really matter much on a busy street)
And my other question is:
How do you like the P’s finder.
Does the all time projected framelines bother you.
Thank you in advance.
admin
June 2nd, 2010 at 02:45
@Angel:
The three projected finders don’t seem bothersome to me. I’ve not had or used a Canon P in years. I’ve been looking through a few of them lately though. The frames are in three distinct sizes, quite easy to associate with the wide or normal or tele lens in use. Plus having all three seen all the time can help in comparing the views each type of lens gives, allowing a direct, one-shot comparison.
Having a cloth shutter in place of the titanium one will probably not reduce the noise that much. Canon V with cloth shutters (folded around the laths) sound to make as much shutter noise as Canon P or 7 with titanium shutters. Perhaps the sound will be a bit different when the shutter is fired without a lens in place, but in use, a lens will always be on and the lens will muffle the sound of a firing shutter significantly.