Spent $80 on a JIS screwdriver set for Japanese cameras and it changed everything vs just using regular Phillips

I dropped $80 on a proper Vessel JIS set last month after stripping a screw on a Pentax Spotmatic, and now I swear by it. But some old-timers tell me they've used standard Phillips for decades without issues. Anyone else had a JIS set save their bacon or think it's overhyped?

3 comments

3 Comments

young.thomas15d ago

I dunno man, I've been using regular Phillips on old cameras for years and never had that big of a problem. Maybe I just got lucky or something but it doesn't seem like that huge of a deal to me.

lucasw8416d ago

Yeah the JIS stuff is no joke. Picked up a Wiha set after wrecking a screw on a Canon FTb and it was night and day. Never going back to regular Phillips on old gear.

jenny_lane1216d ago

Oh man, that Spotmatic strip is a ROUGH lesson, isn't it? I feel your pain. I did the exact same thing on a Minolta SRT a few years back, and I still get a little twitch whenever I touch a tiny cross-head screw. That JIS set is a GAMECHANGER, you can really feel the difference when the bit actually clicks into the head instead of camming out. I haven't touched a regular Phillips on any old camera gear since.