c/camera-repairers

The accountant who timed my lens re-grease job with a stopwatch

Had a customer in Cleveland last spring who stood over my bench the whole time I was fixing his old 50mm. He pulled out a stopwatch and said, 'that should take you 90 minutes tops, I read it online.' I finished in 2 hours and 10 minutes because the helicoid had dried grease caked in three spots. He paid the $180 invoice but grumbled about my 'inefficiency' the whole time. I asked if he times his dentist or his barber like that and he just blinked at me. Anyone else had customers that treat repair work like a factory line?

Used to fix these in 20 minutes flat. Now it's a full afternoon.

Back in 2009 I could overhaul a Pentax K1000 in about 20 minutes. Shutter, mirror box, all of it. Now with the newer mirrorless stuff it's all circuit boards and ribbon cables. Last week I spent four hours on a Sony A7II just tracing a stuck shutter button to a bad flex cable. Found it buried under the sensor mount. Anyone else feel like mechanical cameras were the golden age?

A fixed lens on my bench changed how I check shutters now

Picked up a beat up Kiev 4 at an estate sale in Portland last month, and the sticky shutter had me fooled for 2 hours until I realized it was the aperture blades binding, not the curtains. Has anyone else run into a misdiagnosis like that where the actual fault was a completely different mechanism?

Finally ditched my beat-up screwdrivers for a proper JIS set

I used to swear by my generic Phillips drivers until I stripped a tiny screw on a Pentax K1000 shutter plate last month. A buddy in the shop handed me his Vessel JIS set and the same screw came out clean on the first try. Anyone else make the swap after wrecking a part, or am I the last one to learn this?

The old brass helicoid grease is not the same as the new stuff

Went to regrease a 50mm lens from 1972 last week and noticed the original grease was still smooth as silk. The replacement grease I put in six months ago on another lens is already stiffening up. Seems like the modern lithium greases just don't hold up the same way the old molybdenum blends did. I know some of the synthetics are supposed to be better, but I've seen three repairs come back with focus drag that were fine for a decade before. Anyone else finding this with newer grease or is it just the brands I'm using? I'm in Pittsburgh and order from two different suppliers, so I don't think it's a storage issue.

Spent $80 on a lens spanner wrench and it saved my bacon on a stuck filter ring

Tbh I was trying to save a vintage 50mm for a client and that ring wouldn't budge with anything else. Worth every penny compared to the $15 Amazon kit I tried first. Anyone else find that cheap tools just make the job harder?

The $40 shutter spring I almost threw away

Had this beater Pentax K1000 on my bench last month, shutter was totally dead. Grabbed a generic spring kit off eBay for $40, figured it'd be junk like the rest of the cheap stuff I've tried. After three tries getting the tension right, that little spring brought the whole mechanism back to life. Works perfect now, even at 1/1000th. Anybody else had a cheap repair part surprise them?

Guy in a vintage shop told me I was ruining his dad's old Leica...

Was at this little camera shop off Magazine Street in New Orleans, just asking about a CLA on an old M3 I found at a flea market. Owner comes out from the back, grabs the camera out of my hands, and says 'you're gonna ruin his memory if you try to fix that yourself'. Has anyone else run into weirdly territorial shop owners who treat every old camera like a sacred relic?

Noticed a huge difference after swapping the shutter curtains on a Nikon F2 from 1975 - before vs after

Chose a HEPA filter over a standard one for my lens cleaning station - big mistake

I had to pick between a $40 HEPA tabletop filter or a $15 standard fan for blowing dust off my repair bench last month. Went with the HEPA thinking it was safer, but it barely moves any air and now I'm fighting static cling on mirrors. Has anyone else found a cheap way to keep dust down without dropping $200 on a real clean room setup?

Just realized the difference a CLA makes on a 50 year old camera

I picked up a beat up Canon FTb from a flea market for $30 last month. The shutter sounded rough and the viewfinder was dim. I decided to do a full clean, lube, and adjust on it myself over the weekend. After pulling the prisms and blowing out 50 years of gunk, the viewfinder went from a faded yellow to bright and clear. Has anyone else been surprised by how much better an old camera works after a proper CLA?

TIL you don't need a lens spanner for old rangefinder infinity adjustments

Spent ages hunting for a proper spanner to calibrate a 1950s Voigtlander, then realized a bent paperclip and some patience did the job just as well. Has anyone else found simpler tools work better than the specialized ones on older gear?

Stumbled on a stat about shutter counts from the 1970s that blew my mind

I was reading an old repair manual I picked up at a garage sale last weekend, and it said the average Nikon F2 was rated for only 150,000 actuations, which felt crazy low compared to modern cameras that often hit 300,000 or more. But then I realized back then they probably expected a professional to shoot maybe 50 rolls a year, so that would still last like 30 years you know? Has anyone else run across old specs that made you rethink how hard we used to run our gear?

Old timer told me to stop using canned air on shutters

Guy at a shop in Portland watched me blow out a Pentax spotmatic and said all I'm doing is shoving dust deeper into the mechanism. Switched to a bulb blower and a fine brush, now I actually get stuff clean on the first pass. Anyone else find canned air does more harm than good on leaf shutters?

Stumbled on a stat that 90% of old film cameras get thrown out instead of repaired

I found that number in a 2018 recycling report from some university in California and it just hit me how many beautiful Pentax K1000s and similar bodies must be sitting in landfills right now, has anyone else seen those numbers or am I reading it wrong?

That time a vintage Leica fell off my bench mid-repair at a flea market swap meet

I was at this big camera swap in Portland last spring, elbows deep in a sticky shutter on a 1950s Leica IIIf. Suddenly the whole body slipped out of my clamp and hit the concrete floor with a sound that made everyone around me wince. The owner saw it happen and just laughed, said it already had a dent anyway, but I learned to always double-check my vise grip tension before touching a slippery chrome body. Now I keep a rubber mat under all my repairs, no exceptions. Has anyone else had a nearly heart-stopping drop like that?

Just realized a 2 week old CLA totally changed how my Nikon F3 sounds

I picked up an F3 at a swap meet in Portland 6 months ago, shutter sounded like a rusty gate. Finally sent it to a guy I know for a full CLA, cost me $120. Picked it up last Wednesday and the mirror slap is so quiet now, almost like a whisper compared to before. The difference was mostly old grease turning to glue, he said the damping foam was shot too. Anyone else notice a huge sound difference after a basic service on their old gear?

PSA: Don't buy those cheap $15 sensor cleaning swabs on Amazon

I learned this the hard way last week. Picked up a 12-pack of generic cleaning swabs for like $15 thinking I was saving money over the $40 brand name ones. First try on a Sony A7III sensor, they left streaks and little fibers everywhere. Spent 3 hours trying to re-clean it with the proper stuff I had to order overnight. Lost $15 on the swabs plus another $30 on express shipping for the good ones. Anyone else get burned by knockoff cleaning tools?

Old timer at a shop in Portland told me to stop cleaning shutter blades with lighter fluid

He said the naphtha eats the lubrication on the pivots over time and showed me a Pentax Spotmatic that had seized up after years of that method. Switched to Ronsonol and a tiny bit of watch oil instead, anyone else gotten similar advice from the older guys?

That shutter curtain alignment got me good

Spent about 4 hours trying to get a Nikon FM curtain tension right. Turned out the real problem was a bent fork on the take-up spool, not the tension screws. Anyone else burn a whole afternoon on something that simple?

Fixed my first Pentax 6x7 with a hammer - don't be me

Used to gently tap stuck lens rings with my palm until I cracked a rear element on a customer's 105mm in Portland last March. Now I just use a rubber strap wrench and a heat gun on stubborn threads - anyone else trash their first expensive repair because you were too stubborn to buy the right tool?

Tried ultrasonic cleaning a shutter mechanism and it seized up solid

I got a used Nikon F2 with oily blades and figured a quick dip in the ultrasonic cleaner would save me hours. After 3 minutes on low heat, the whole shutter assembly locked up tighter than a drum. Learned the hard way that ultrasonic vibrations can shake loose tiny screws and shift alignment on these old mechanical shutters. Now I stick to hand-cleaning each blade with lighter fluid and a Q-tip, takes longer but zero failures since. Any of you guys had an ultrasonic cleaner wreck something you didn't expect?

Old timer in Portland told me I was using too much epoxy on lens mounts

He watched me glue a helicoid and said I was making a mess that would harden and mess up the threads. I switched to a tiny toothpick dab instead of the big blob I used before and it saved me from having to redo two mounts last week. Has anyone else had to unlearn bad habits from early repair attempts?

I finally tried ultrasonic cleaning on a seized shutter and it backfired

Had a beat up Canonet QL17 with a stuck shutter, threw it in the ultrasonic bath with 50/50 distilled water and ammonia solution for 10 minutes like I read on a forum. Came out the shutter blades were fine but the glass on the viewfinder had this weird haze that would NOT wipe off. Guess the solution got past the seals, now I gotta replace the whole finder assembly. Anybody else wreck a rangefinder this way or did I use too much heat?

My trick for removing stuck filter rings without marring the metal

Last week I had a beat up Helios 44-2 with a filter ring that wouldn't budge. I wrapped a rubber band around it and used a pair of pliers - came right off with zero scratches. Has anyone else found a better method for these tight rings?