c/camera-repairers

Switched from canned air to a good blower for sensor cleaning

I used to always use those canned air duster cans for cleaning mirror boxes and sensors. But last month I bought a Giottos rocket blower and I'm never going back. The canned air left residue sometimes and I wasted so much money on new cans. Has anyone else made the switch and noticed a difference?

Serious question - should we be cleaning old shutters or just leaving them be?

Visited a shop in Portland last week where the guy swears by dry cleaning only, says any solvent strips the original lubricant. Then across town another repairer soaks everything in naphtha. I've got a 1950s Compur shutter that's stiff as hell - which camp are you in?

Found a broken solder joint on a Canon AE-1 that had been sitting for 2 years

I've had this AE-1 on my shelf since summer 2022. Kept telling myself I'd get to it eventually. Last night I finally sat down with a multimeter and checked the flex circuit near the shutter button. Found a hairline crack right where the wire bends. Reflowed it with a cheap iron I got from Harbor Freight for $12. Camera fired up on the first try. Has anyone else had luck fixing those flex circuits or do you usually just swap the whole board?

Visited a repair shop in St. Paul and saw how they organized their shutters

That old Rolleiflex owner at the diner convinced me to stop forcing repairs

I was at a diner in Portland last weekend, and this guy in his 70s saw my repair case and started talking about his Rolleiflex 2.8F. He said he quit sending it out for repairs 20 years ago and just learned to work around the small issues, like the slow shutter speeds being off by a stop. He told me that trying to get every single function perfectly factory spec was ruining the camera's character, and that the quirks actually made his favorite shots better. That hit me different because I've spent weeks chasing tiny tolerances on older gear, only to end up frustrated. He honestly made me realize that maybe a 90 percent working camera with some soul is better than a fully overhauled one that sits on a shelf. Has anyone else here backed off from obsessing over perfection on vintage stuff?

Can we talk about how sealed battery packs fail quietly?

Had a customer bring in a Canon PowerShot last week that just stopped turning on. Figured it was a simple power board issue, but after 3 hours of tracing circuits I found the sealed lithium pack had a broken internal tab. No visible damage, no swelling, just dead. Replaced the pack and it fired right up. Has anyone else run into these sealed batteries going bad without obvious signs?

Had a customer argue with me for 20 minutes about a sticky shutter blade on a Canon AE-1 at my shop in Austin last week

Honestly, I'm still thinking about this. Guy comes in with a Canon AE-1, says the shutter blades are slow to open in cold weather. I pop the lens off, take a look, and tell him it's likely old lubricant turning to goo, a super common issue. He insists it's a spring tension problem and even pulls up some YouTube video from a guy who says you just need to oil the blades directly. I tried explaining that oil will attract dust and make it worse, but he was dead set. We stood there for almost half an hour, me showing him the gunk on a test camera and him quoting some random internet guy. Finally he packed up his camera and said he'd fix it himself at home. I'm not mad, just confused why some people trust a stranger on video more than the person holding their camera. Has anyone else dealt with customers ignoring your actual repair experience because of something they saw online?

Spent 8 hours chasing a light leak on a Pentax K1000

Turns out it was the mirror bumper foam crumbling, not the door seals. Has anyone else had a fix that took way longer than it should have because you overlooked something obvious?

Why does nobody talk about how easy it is to strip screw heads on old Mamiya cameras?

I wasted like $40 and 3 hours last week trying to fix a stuck film advance on a Mamiya C220. Turns out the previous owner used some cheap screws that just rounded off with the first turn of my JIS screwdriver. Lost the whole evening and had to drill out the screw anyway. Anyone else run into this with older Japanese gear?

Had to choose between original glass and a cheap replacement on a 1950s Rolleiflex

I got a Rolleiflex 3.5 in last week with a scratched taking lens. The owner wanted it working for a family shoot but didn't want to drop $200 on a genuine Zeiss optic. I went with a $40 uncoated UV filter over the front instead of swapping the glass out. It hid the scratches well enough and saved them the cash, but the flare in backlit shots was pretty rough. Has anyone else cheaped out on a lens repair and regretted it later?

PSA: hand tools vs ultrasonic for cleaning old shutters

I spent 6 months using only hand tools to clean sticky shutter blades on old Canon FD lenses. Took me forever and I still had spots I couldn't reach. Finally broke down and got a $80 ultrasonic cleaner from Harbor Freight. Ran a batch of 5 shutter assemblies through it with some lighter fluid and they came out perfect in 10 minutes. Anyone else find a big upgrade by switching cleaning methods?

Watch out for customers who 'know better' about their own gear

Some guy brought in a Nikon F3 claiming it just needed a 'simple mirror adjustment' after he dropped it at a baseball game. I opened it up and found the whole prism bracket snapped in half, a $150 repair minimum. Anyone else get folks who argue with you about what's actually broken?

That old Rolleiflex shutter that locked up on me during a rush job

I was in my basement shop last Thursday trying to finish a Rolleiflex 3.5F before the owner picked it up Saturday. The shutter was cleaning up fine until I tested it and it just jammed at 1/500. Turns out a tiny sliver of old lubricant had dried and stuck the blade stack together. I had to disassemble the whole shutter block, clean each blade with lighter fluid, and reassemble it piece by piece. It runs smooth now but it ate up my whole evening. Anybody else run into old gummed-up lubricant on these German shutters?

That $80 rubber ring set I bought for my Yashica literally melted within 2 weeks

Figured cheap seals from eBay would hold up for a basic CLA, but they turned into sticky goo and got all over the mirror box. Has anyone else had luck with generic kits or do you just roll your own from sheet material?

Camera strap screws kept loosening on me at a wedding shoot last month

I was shooting a wedding in Portland when I noticed my camera strap kept slipping. Tightening them with a tiny drop of blue Loctite fixed it solid. Anyone else deal with this?

The thing that old Leica shooter told me at a garage sale still sticks with me

I was at this random garage sale in Portland about 6 months ago, just looking for old junk, and I spotted a beat up Leica M3 sitting on a table. The guy running the sale was this older gentleman, probably in his 80s, and he saw me staring at it. He said "that one's been through 3 wars and a divorce, it'll outlive us both." I asked him what he meant and he spent 20 minutes explaining how he never sent it to a shop for cleaning, he just used lens cleaner and a soft cloth on the body, nothing more. He told me most folks overcomplicate camera maintenance and end up breaking things by trying to fix what ain't broken. It really made me think about all the times I've taken apart a perfectly working shutter just because I thought it needed a CLA. Has anyone else had an old timer drop some simple wisdom on you that changed how you approach repairs?

That batch of shutter fluid from eBay almost ruined 3 cameras

I ordered a big bottle of shutter damping fluid from a seller in Ohio last month, figured it was the same stuff I always use. By the time I serviced three Nikon FM bodies the fluid had turned into sticky goo inside the shutter mechanism. Has anyone else run into bad batches of this stuff from random sellers?

A collector told me I was wrecking vintage lenses with my cleaning method

He said my using rubbing alcohol was stripping the coatings off old Zeiss glass from the 50s. Now I only use lens cleaning fluid with distilled water and a microfiber cloth, anyone else get burned by bad advice early on?

Talked with an old repair guy at a camera show in Chicago last weekend

He told me he still uses his original Sinar P from 1982 and refuses to touch any digital backs. Said 'these new cameras are just computers with lenses, the real craft is in the mechanical parts.' It hit me different because I've been spending more time fixing circuit boards than aligning shutters lately. Anyone else feel like the trade is splitting into two separate worlds now?

Old Canon AE-1 finally locked up on me mid-shoot

Was testing a lens I just shimmed, and the mirror got stuck halfway up. Hadn't seen that failure in years. Anyone know if the old foam decay trick still works to fix the mirror bumper, or is there a better way now?

That week I flooded a darkroom with a simple shutter adjustment

Last March I had a week that started so good I thought I was on a roll. Tuesday morning I got a beat up Pentax K1000 in for a sticky shutter, easy fix right? I cleaned the blades and set the speeds with my tester, everything looked perfect. Then Thursday I did a Yashica Mat 124G, thought I had the leaf shutter timing spot on. But Friday afternoon I got a call from a customer in Austin saying their K1000 was puking light leaks like crazy. Turns out I over tightened a screw on the mirror box, threw the whole timing off. By Monday I had three returns sitting on my bench, all from my "good week" work. That $85 repair cost me about $200 in refunds and a dent in my rep. Has anyone else had a run of repairs that looked clean but all failed for different reasons?

Had a shutter seize on a Nikon F3 during a wedding shoot

Happened two weekends ago in Nashville. Mid-roll, shutter just locked up at 1/60. Client was walking down the aisle. I swapped to backup quick but when I got home I tore it down. Found old lubricant had turned to glue on the mirror box mechanism. Cleaned it with some naphtha and relubed with proper damping grease. Works fine now but I almost sent it off to a shop. Anyone else run into this on older Nikons?

Heard a guy at a camera swap say 'don't blow the dust in, blow it out' and it clicked for me

I was at a camera swap in Phoenix last Saturday and this old timer was showing a young kid how to clean a sensor. He said 'most people just blow air into the mirror box and push crap deeper in, you gotta angle the blower away.' I've been fixing cameras for 3 years now and I totally never thought about that. All this time I was blowing dust deeper into the shutter mechanism on my own Nikon D750. After I tried his trick I got way less spots on my test shots. It's such a simple thing but it really changed how I look at cleaning now. Anyone else have a dumb little tip that took them way too long to figure out?

The 'never touch the glass' rule on vintage lenses is getting ignored way too often

I had a customer bring in a 1960s Canon 50mm f/1.4 last week that was covered in thumbprints right on the front element. People keep wiping them with their shirt or a dry cloth and it scratches the coating. After three tries with proper cleaner and a microfiber cloth I got it clean, but the haze from the scratches still shows in bright light. Has anyone else noticed a recent uptick in junk lenses from people not knowing basic handling?

Tried ultrasonic cleaning vs hand cleaning a stuck shutter, no contest

Had a beat up Canon AE-1 Program with a shutter that was sticking at 1/1000. Spent an hour with q-tips and lighter fluid getting nowhere. Threw it in my $80 ultrasonic cleaner with some warm water and dish soap for 3 cycles and the shutter snapped right back to life. Has anyone else gotten better results from one method over the other for stubborn leaf shutters?