A customer told me his old Nikon F3 was 'just a paperweight' now and it got under my skin

He brought it in for a shutter issue, but when I gave him the quote, he shrugged and said he'd just buy a new mirrorless camera instead. He called the repair a waste of money on a dead system. I spent the rest of the day cleaning that camera, thinking about how much skill and history is in these things that people just toss. It's not just fixing a part, it's keeping a story working. Do you guys ever get that feeling, like we're preserving something bigger than just gear?

2 comments

2 Comments

kelly.parker9d ago

Heard a story from a buddy about a guy who tried to trade a Leica M3 for a cheap point-and-shoot, calling it a brick. My friend took it in, fixed the slow speeds over a weekend just for fun. He said holding that camera, knowing the photos it must have taken, felt like holding a quiet piece of the past. It really does feel like we're saving more than just machines sometimes.

susan769d ago

Oh, that hits home. A man brought in his dad's old Pentax K1000 last month, said it was junk now. I fixed the light seals just to prove a point, and the weight of it in my hands, that solid click of the shutter... it's a piece of history, not trash. We're not just technicians, we're caretakers.