I was working on a old Pentax lens last weekend and needed a spanner wrench to get the retaining ring off. The cheap universal set was $18 at the local shop but the brand name one was $45 online. I went with the universal one and the tips slipped right off the ring, scratched the barrel a little. Ended up ordering the nicer one anyway and it took 3 more days to finish the job. Anyone else have a tool you wish you just bought right the first time?
I've been repairing cameras for about 8 years now, mostly older stuff like Pentax and Canon film bodies. Last week a customer brought in a Spotmatic with the shutter stuck halfway. I was about to tell him it needed a full CLA which would run around $150. But I remembered reading something on a forum years ago, so I grabbed a soft pencil eraser and gently rubbed the curtain track a few times. Fired the shutter and it worked perfectly. Customer was thrilled and I charged him $20 for shop time. Found the original tip on a Pentax forum from 2007 of all places. Has anyone else found a weird fix like that that actually works?
I should have just bought a replacement body for $80 off eBay instead of paying a shop in Portland to fix my broken shutter button, and now I'm stuck wondering if it's ever worth fixing old cameras when replacements are cheaper - has anyone else gotten burned by repair costs that didn't pay off?
I used to spend 20 minutes with a bulb blower and lens pen for every dirty element, especially on old vintage glass. Then about six months ago a customer dropped off a Nikon with fungus and I started using a ultrasonic cleaner with distilled water and a touch of dish soap. It cuts cleaning time in half and gets into those rear group cracks I could never reach by hand. Has anyone else switched over to ultrasonic for stubborn coatings or am I risking delamination?
I had a vintage lens where the helicoid grease had stiffened up and the ring was slipping. Tried putting a penny behind the set screw for more pressure and it actually held steady for 3 months now. Does anyone else do oddball fixes like this or is it just asking for trouble later?
Spent two hours stuffing pencil lead into a groove on an old Yashica-Mat and it still leaked... finally grabbed some shellac from my wife's craft drawer and it sealed up perfect on the first try. Anyone else got a weird hack that beat the standard fix?
I was at a camera meetup in Seattle last Saturday and this old timer claimed he never wipes the gold contacts on his Canon lenses. Said he just blows on them and that's it. Anyone else run into issues from skipping a proper clean with isopropyl?
I spent 3 hours trying to diagnose a dead shutter on a Canon Powershot G9 last week. Checked everything - board power, sensor connections, even the main ribbon cable. Turned out it was a $12 flex cable from the top LCD to the main board that had a micro crack you could barely see. The camera would work fine until you tilted the screen, then bam - error. Has anyone else run into these tiny flex cables being the culprit more often than actual sensor or board failures?
He said the alcohol was drying out the lubricant in the mechanism, and after checking three seized-up bodies from my bench I think he was right. Anyone else switch to naphtha for cleaning those old leaf shutters?
Ran into this retired repair guy named Chuck at a swap meet last Sunday. He told me he used to use a mix of hydrogen peroxide and ammonia for stubborn fungus, said it broke down the spores without hurting the coating. I always just used alcohol wipes and hoped for the best. Tried his method on a beat-up 50mm I had sitting around and it cleared up way better than I expected. Anyone else got weird solvent tricks they swear by?
I bought a cheap lens spanner set off Amazon last month for about $60, and finally used it today to open a stuck 50mm f/1.4 that had a jammed focus ring. Took maybe 10 minutes to get it apart, clean the helicoid grease, and put it back together working smooth. Anyone else find a tool that seemed like a gamble but ended up saving you money quick?
I was chatting with a guy who's been repairing cameras for 40 years at his shop in Portland. He told me he never uses those expensive lens cleaning solutions, just distilled water and a microfiber cloth. He said all those chemicals can actually strip the coating over time. Made me wonder if I've been wasting money on fancy cleaners. Anyone else ever hear this from a veteran repair person?
Guy drove three hours from Portland to my shop with a IIIf that had a lens mount bent at least 2mm off true. Said he'd been sitting on it for six months afraid to touch it himself. Anyone else get customers who treat their gear like it's made of glass?
I was going through my repair logbook last weekend and saw I had just passed 1,000 shutter repairs since I started keeping records in 2018. That number surprised me because I don't think of myself as a specialist, but I guess fixing stuck blades on old Nikons adds up. Most of those were the classic Copal square shutters from the 70s and 80s that get gummed up with old lubricant. Has anyone else had a milestone catch them off guard like that?
I had a customer bring in a Model 100 from an estate sale in Portland, and while I was testing the shutter, the internal battery pack started smoking from old corroded wires touching the frame. Has anyone else run into old Polaroid pack film cameras with dangerous battery leakage issues?
I was in my shop last Thursday working on a Rolleiflex 2.8F, cleaning some sticky shutter blades. My hand slipped and I knocked the whole lens assembly off the bench onto a concrete floor. The helicoid threads got bent to hell and I spent 3 hours with a jeweler's file trying to straighten them out. Has anyone else had a repair go sideways like this from just a simple drop?
I keep seeing people in here blast compressed air straight into a camera body to clean the mirror. All you're doing is pushing grit deeper into the shutter mechanism or onto the focusing screen. Spend $8 on a proper blower bulb instead of risking a $200 repair on a Canon AE-1.
Three cameras came in on Monday alone, all with mirror stuck up. Two were FE's, one an FM. Thought maybe it was a bad batch of something but they were from different states. Ended up being the same foam bumper decay in all three. Took about 45 minutes each to clean out the old gunk and replace. Has anyone else seen a weird cluster of the same issue come through all at once like that?
I was fixing up a 1940s press camera for a collector last Thursday and the sync cord just crumbled in my hand. The rubber was so dry rotted it felt like chalk dust. Spent the next two hours trying to find a replacement that actually fits the old bayonet connector. Has anyone had luck rewiring these old cloth-covered cords or is it just better to track down NOS parts?
I was in my shop last Tuesday, about to close up for the night, and I heard this weird crunching sound coming from a Rolleiflex I had on the bench. Thought it was a loose screw at first, but nope. I take the lens panel off and out crawls this fat cockroach, just chilling in there. It must have gotten in through a crack in the bellows or something. I ended up having to tear the whole camera down to clean out all the roach poop and eggs that were stuck in the shutter mechanism. Took me about 4 hours with a toothbrush and some alcohol wipes to get it all out. Has anyone else found a critter inside a camera? I can't be the only one dealing with bug problems.
Some guy at a shop in Portland said I was scrubbing too hard on his vintage glass and handed me a q-tip with a drop of lens fluid - turns out gentle circles actually work better. Has anyone else had a customer call you out on something that ended up being right?
Bought a fancy lens cleaning kit online for $80. It had a brush with some weird chemical on it that smeared oil everywhere. Anyone else had luck with just a microfiber cloth and distilled water?
I was digging through a repair blog last night and saw that stat from a shop in Chicago, but half the guys on this forum swear by replacing the whole transport assembly every time, where do you land on that debate?
My old mentor, Frank, insisted I could stretch the original spring back into shape, but after three attempts it snapped, so I had to order the $12 replacement part from Japan anyway.