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If you're still using the guess and check method on leaf shutters, you're wasting your customers' time
I had a guy bring in a Rolleiflex 3.5F last Tuesday because the shutter was capping at 1/500 and he'd already paid some other shop in Portland $85 to 'clean and lube' it twice with no fix. I pulled the front ring off my trusty shutter tester and showed him the actual curve on my laptop, and it was off by almost 40 percent at the top speeds. The problem is that most repair guys still rely on their ear and a flashlight to judge shutter speed, which is fine for a rough idea but useless when a customer is paying for real accuracy. I've been running a cheap $120 optical tester for a while now, and it catches stuff my ears never would, like a slightly bent pallet or a main spring that's gone soft. If you're charging people money for a CLA on a leaf shutter and you don't have a tester, you're basically guessing and hoping they don't notice. I've seen too many 'repaired' cameras come back with the same capping issue six months later, and it gives all of us a bad name. So my question is, how many of you actually own a tester, and if not, what's stopping you from spending the money?
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felixm299d ago
My buddy Dave runs a small repair bench out of his garage in Tacoma and he swore by the ear method for years, said he could hear a 1/250 from a 1/500 no problem. Then a customer brought back a Yashica Mat three times with the same slow speed drag, and Dave finally broke down and bought a $130 tester off eBay. First camera he put on it showed the 1/125 running at 1/90, and he said it felt like getting glasses for the first time. He's since caught two shutters with soft springs that he would've passed as fine, and both customers came back happy instead of mad. Point is, the money stings up front but it pays for itself the first time you avoid a redo. Dave's not a tech guy at all and he figured it out in an afternoon.
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