Canon Pellix / Pellix QL
Introduced in April of 1965, the Canon Pellix is noteworthy for being the first Canon SLR with a TTL light meter and remarkable for its use of a stationary pellicle mirror. Instead of the customary, moving mirror that flipped up just before the shutter fired and blacked out the finder image, the Pellix's mirror is semi-transparent and allowed light to both pass directly through it to the film and also redirected light up into the finder. The major upshot of this was the user could see through the lens throughout the entire exposure - especially long exposures - and watch the scene at the moment of the shutter firing. This also meant that less light reaches both the film and finder: about 70% of the light coming through the lens passes through to the film (a loss of about -0.5EV) while the remaining 30% is seen in the viewfinder (about a -1.7EV loss). This causes the finder to be noticeably dimmer compared to other Canon SLR cameras of the time. Additionally as the pellicle mirror became dirty it would degrade the quality of the image projected through it, so great care had to be taken with keeping the pellicle mirror clean and free of damage.
The Pellix has a metal focal plane shutter with speeds ranging from 1 second to 1/1000, plus Bulb and a flash sync of 1/60. The Pellix employed a metal shutter curtain to prevent holes from being burned in the shutter if the lens cap was left off, a problem that is normally associated with rangefinder cameras that lack mirrors to block light from the lens hitting the shutter curtain. The TTL CdS meter was located in a moving arm that swung out in front of the shutter when the depth of field preview lever was engaged. This meter read a 12% spot and allowed for very accurate measurements.
In March 1966, Canon introduced the Pellix QL which offered a couple updates. That camera included Canon's Quick Load system and also modified the camera battery compartment to accept the Canon Booster accessory for increased lowlight metering performance. The Pellix QL also expanded the ISO range from 10-800 of the original Pellix to 25-2000.
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