Stop blaming the shutter when it's the aperture blade lube

Three customers this month brought in old Canons with 'sticky shutters' and every one had sluggish aperture blades, not a shutter issue. I checked the 35mm FD lenses first since that's where I usually see it, and the blades were gummed up from old grease that turned to tar after 20 years. You can save yourself an hour of diagnosis if you just test at f/16 and watch for a slow stop-down before you even pull the mirror box. Anyone else running into this on the older breech-lock lenses, or is it just my bench in Minneapolis?

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sean_green444d ago

Every one had sluggish aperture blades" sounds about right for lenses that old, but calling it tar might be a stretch. Grease gets sticky, sure, but I've seen plenty of shutters that actually need a CLA and act the same way at first glance. Guess it depends on how much time you wanna spend before pulling the lens off.

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