I was out in Austin fixing a customer's old Hasselblad and the selenium meter started jumping all over the place. It would read f/8 one second then f/16 the next without me moving. Took it apart and found a corroded wire on the coil terminal that was barely hanging on. Re-soldered it and now it's steady as a rock. Has anyone else run into flaky readings on those old meters or is it always the same spot?
He told me to use a drop of dish soap and warm water on a microfiber cloth instead of all those fancy solvents. I tried it on a stubborn haze on a 50mm f/1.4 and it came out spotless in 10 seconds. Anyone else got a weird trick that actually works better than the standard stuff?
Told him there's no battery in a mechanical Leica, he argued with me for 10 minutes. Anyone else get customers who won't believe you know your own trade?
I used to just spray cleaner and wipe shutter blades on the camera, figured it was fine. Then Bob from Bob's Camera Service in Portland spent 10 minutes showing me his method at a repair meetup last fall - he takes the entire shutter out and cleans each blade separate on a microfiber pad. Tried it on a beat up Mamiya 1000 DTL and got zero drag on the blades for the first time. Any of you guys actually disassemble the shutter every time or just surface clean like I used to?
Last week I had to choose between a $60 original Canon shutter button and a $15 third party one for a client's AE-1. I went with the third party to save them money. The button worked fine for two days then started sticking on half press. Now I have to redo the whole job and explain why the bill just went up. Has anyone else had third party parts fail like this or did I just get a bad batch?
I had three separate customers bring in SX-70s and a Spectra all in the same 6 hour window, and each one had a different weird jam that took me like 45 minutes to diagnose, has anyone else had a day where the camera gods just decided to mess with you?
I picked up this beat up Spotmatic from a garage sale in Portland for $20. The shutter was dragging at 1/500, looking more like 1/30. After I cleaned the old gunk out of the helicoid and relubed the mirror box, the difference was night and day. Now the speeds are bang on within 1/3 stop across the board. Has anyone else noticed how much a good CLA wakes up those old screwmount bodies?
Last summer at a camera swap in Portland, this old repair guy saw me open a 50mm and just started laying into me about using the wrong type of grease on the helicoid. He pulled out his own tube from his pocket and made me sniff it to compare... turns out he was right, my stuff was way too thin. Anyone else have a run-in with a repair veteran who changed how you work?
I mean, I picked up a set of digital calipers at a swap meet in Portland about 6 months ago. They're super precise and read out in thousandths right away. But idk, I keep reaching for my old brass Mitutoyo ones instead, just feels more solid in my hand when I'm checking a shutter curtain gap. Has anyone else gone back to analog tools after trying digital?
I always wiped from edge to center, thinking I was pushing dust off. Then a retired Nikon tech watched me do it and asked why I was smearing grease into the center of the glass. Now I start at the middle and spiral out, and my recoat jobs actually look clean.
Last week I had a Nikon F2 with a shredded titanium curtain. I did the first curtain the way I always have, using the jig and factory specs. For the second one I tried the old timer trick of using a thin layer of contact cement on the drum instead of screws. The contact cement method was way faster and the curtain tension came out perfect on the first try. Has anyone else tried adhesive over the factory screw method on these old F bodies?
I spent an entire Sunday replacing light seals on my Canon FTb, thinking it would be a quick two hour job, but the old foam had turned into sticky tar that took forever to clean off. The acetone dissolved the goo but also started eating into the chrome on the film door, so I had to stop and find a gentler cleaner. Has anyone else run into this with older cameras, or did I just pick a bad solvent?
Was at the camera swap meet in Portland last weekend and heard someone tell a newbie to clean his shutter with lighter fluid. I get that Ronsonol was a thing back in the day, but is that still a good idea with modern shutter curtains? Seems risky when you could just use a proper sensor swab and eclipse fluid for $12. On the other hand, some old-timers swear by the lighter fluid trick for stubborn oil. What do you all use for sticky aperture blades in a 90s zoom lens?
Bought a cheap ultrasonic cleaner off Amazon for $40 two months ago. Had a set of sticky shutter blades from a 1970s Pentax that I'd been soaking in lighter fluid for days with no luck. Dropped them in the cleaner with some Ronsonol for 10 minutes and they came out perfect. Thought it was overkill but now I use it on everything. Has anyone else had bad results with certain solvents in their cleaner?
He told me he spent 12 years rebuilding Compur shutters and now refuses to touch anything with cloth curtains because they rot or stretch at random, which got me thinking - has anyone else started avoiding vintage focal-plane cameras altogether?
I was trying to peel off the old leatherette on a 70s Kodak Retinette that had this gross, gummy adhesive underneath. Tried my wife's hair dryer first since it was right there, and it barely softened the glue after 5 minutes of holding it in place. Switched to my cheap $20 heat gun from Harbor Freight and that stuff lifted off in like 30 seconds without marring the paint underneath. Has anyone else found a specific temp or brand of heat gun that works best for this kind of job?
So last month I'm at this camera swap meet in Portland, and this old guy who used to shoot weddings back in the 80s sees me fogging up a lens with my breath to wipe it down. He just about lost it. He told me I was basically spitting acid all over the glass and that I needed to stop doing that immediately. He said the moisture from your breath has enzymes that can eat away at coatings over time. I thought he was just being dramatic, you know how old timers get. But then he showed me his beat up old Nikon 50mm f1.4 that he's cleaned with a special solution and microfiber cloth for decades, and the coatings looked perfect. Meanwhile I've got a 24-70 that's starting to show some weird hazy spots near the edges. I switched to using a lens cleaning fluid I got from a camera shop and a proper cloth, and within a few weeks the hazy spots actually started fading. Has anyone else had a similar experience with breath ruining their lens coatings over years of use?
A guy at a camera swap meet in Portland last summer watched me scrub a front element with a microfiber and some solution. He just shook his head and said 'you're gonna rub the coating right off that thing'. I thought he was being dramatic until I looked closer at an old lens I had cleaned a few times and noticed some weird hazing. Now I barely touch the glass, just blow off dust first then use a drop of fluid on a swab and let it sit for a second before wiping. Wish someone had called me out sooner. Anyone else had to relearn something basic like that?
I used to put a drop of oil directly on the shutter blades on old leaf shutters. Then a customer brought in a Compur from the 1950s that was completely gummy. I asked a buddy who repairs antique cameras and he told me I was supposed to put one tiny drop on the pivot points only, not the blades. The oil on the blades was attracting dust and slowing everything down. Has anyone else made that mistake on a specific shutter model?
Had a customer bring in a Spotmatic last month with inconsistent exposure. I checked everything - springs, gears, even cleaned the blades twice. Turns out the problem was dried lubricant from the 1970s that had turned into glue. Took me three tries with a specific solvent blend to get it moving smooth again. Anyone else run into old lubricant causing issues in 40+ year old cameras?
I was shooting a friend's wedding in Dayton and on frame 12 of the second roll, the shutter just froze solid. The self-timer mechanism inside had come loose and jammed the whole works. Has anyone else had that specific failure on these old TLRs or did I just get unlucky?
Back when I started out in 2003 at a shop in Portland, I'd use a Q-tip with lighter fluid to clean mirror boxes on Pentax Spotmatics. Took forever and you had to be careful not to leave lint. Now I use a Sensor Scope with a microfiber swab and get it done in about 2 minutes flat. Any of you still using the old Q-tip method or did you switch over too?
Had a guy come into the shop in Portland last month with a Nikon D750 he bought used online. He was insisting the 150,000 shutter count was a lie and started yelling that we were trying to scam him on a repair quote. I pulled out my laptop and showed him the actual file metadata right there on the screen. He just went quiet for a second, then asked if I could still fix the mirror box for $200 less. Has anyone else had a customer argue against hard data like that?
Met an old guy at a camera swap meet in Portland who told me he stopped repairing digital cameras after 2010 because the ribbon cables got too fragile to handle more than a few disassemblies. He said he's seen entire shutter assemblies bricked just from a single bend in the wrong spot. Has anyone else noticed newer cameras feel more like disposable electronics than the old gear?
A retired repair guy at a camera show in Portland told me last year that canned air can wreck cloth shutters. I thought he was being overly cautious, so I kept doing it on a beat up Nikon FM I was cleaning. A few weeks later the shutter started dragging on the second curtain, and I had to take it apart and manually straighten out a fold in the material. The air blast had pushed a dust speck behind the curtain and created a bulge. It took me three hours to fix what could have been avoided. Anyone else ever mess up a shutter by ignoring the old school advice? I feel like I learned the hard way.