Old timer told me to stop using compressed air on shutter curtains. I didn't listen.

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.

3 comments

3 Comments

the_rowan20h agoMost Upvoted

Same here, rocket blower saved my Spotmatic after canned air messed up the curtain.

drew_jones311d ago

Same thing happened to me on an old Pentax Spotmatic. Switched to a bulb blower and never looked back, works way better for dust and doesn't risk damaging anything.

lunah1222h ago

Yeah "works way better for dust" is exactly right. I had a similar mess with my own camera where canned air just blasted dust deeper into the mirror box. A decent bulb blower changed everything for me. @drew_jones31 you're totally spot on about the risk thing too, I've heard too many horror stories of people ruining their shutter curtains with compressed air. I just use a rocket blower now and a soft brush for stubborn spots, zero issues.