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Walked into a dusty old camera shop in Portland and had a weird moment...
I was visiting Portland last month for a family thing and stopped into this tiny camera shop off Hawthorne called Pro Photo Supply. They had a repair bench in the back that looked like it hadn't been cleaned since the 90s. There was a Leica M3 sitting on it with the top plate off and I just stood there staring at the shutter mechanism for like 10 minutes. It hit me how those old mechanical cameras are basically just tiny clockwork machines. No circuit boards, no flex cables, just springs and gears all working together. Made me think about how much we overcomplicate stuff these days with electronics when a steady mechanical design can last 60 years. Has anyone else had that moment where you look at a classic camera and realize how simple it really is underneath?
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dixon.ryan27d ago
Hit the nail on the head. It's not just cameras, it's everything now. I was fixing an old toaster the other week, just a bimetallic strip and a spring, and it made me realize how much stuff we throw away because a chip fried when a $0.50 resistor could've been swapped. We traded durability for convenience and now we're stuck with gadgets that break on purpose so you gotta buy the new one every 2 years. Old mechanical stuff makes you feel like you actually own it, not just rent it till the battery dies.
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