shane_park92•1mo agoMost Upvoted

Hit 500 repaired cameras this month and it hit me harder than I expected

I was just cleaning my bench and counting up my repair logs from the last 5 years, and somehow I've fixed exactly 500 cameras (mostly Canon AE-1s and old Nikons). It caught me off guard because I never thought I'd hit that number, especially starting out of my garage in Portland. How many repairs did you folks realize you'd done after a certain point, and did it make you feel different about the work?

3 comments

3 Comments

murphy.tessa1mo ago

Oh man, that is a serious milestone. 500 cameras is a lot of shutters and light seals. I remember when I hit 100 guitar amps I'd fixed and I started getting weird about it. Like, I'd be recapping a Fender Twin and just think about all the different people who played through this thing and how many shows it must have seen. It made me slow down a lot, started taking photos of the inside before I touched anything just to remember the ones that were really unique. You probably have some wild stories sitting on your bench from those 500 Canon AE-1s alone.

shanef341mo ago

Gently though, the AE-1 wasn't actually the most common one for Canon. It was the AE-1 Program that really flooded the market. The original AE-1 is still a classic but the Program is the one you see at every estate sale.

jamie8041mo ago

Man I feel that. Start keeping a log of the serial numbers and what you fixed on each one (it helps with parts ordering too), but honestly the real trick is to not get too sentimental about it. Each camera is just the next one on the bench, you know? The numbers add up whether you pay attention or not.