Camera Workshop.

In mid-February, usually our hottest, most humid month, it's been pouring all day, the temperature at 20°C. This morning I dressed as usual for summer, in T-shirt and shorts: I've been out to the shops, and had to get out a waterproof jacket, it's warmer inside than out there! Most unseasonal. My logo of Old Sol will have to be changed for -- what? --an umbrella maybe. Sunny South Africa indeed!

Having to be indoors for a day prompted me to get down to fixing some old cameras. This apartment is small, so I set up the workshop in the bedroom:



The cameras on the table are two Pentax MX's and the old Spotmatic. A friend has offered to give me one of the MX's, but the one I want had lost its foam seals and mirror buffer. I was at first flummoxed by this, I couldn't even start looking for these materials here; however a search of the web turned up an enthusiast in Dallas, USA, who actually sells a repair kit for these old SLR models for only $10! A week later the envelope arrived -- strips of all the rightfoam materials for seals, plus detailed instructions about doing the job. Over the years the foam material -- rubber? -- has turned into a sticky tar-like substance, jamming the mirror and leaving the film door unprotected. Removing the sticky stuff was a mission: I've never done this before, and the tarry mess has been extremely difficult to scrape out. I was naturally a bit cautious about working on these cameras, but eventually I just dug the stuff out with toothpicks, screwdriver and tweezers, after trying to soften it with benzine and chemical cleaner. Fortunately those instruments were very solidly built, but the film door seals are recessed in a groove less than 1mm wide. I also had to take the focussing screen out (gingerly) as the stuff had stuck to it. I now have even greater respect for Japanese camera makers -- these models date back to the 1960's; the Spotmatic was one of the first TTL meter cameras.

Here I'm being careful, before things got really tough!

At this stage I've cleaned out most of the gunge, and next have to start the precise work -- cutting the new material and sticking it in place. This is not a job to be done in haste!

In the meantime, just for interest, I lined up all of the various equipment that I have in the apartment. From left to right they are;

two Pentax MX's with a couple of lenses;
Pentax Spotmatic with its standard lens;
Fuji S3500 (my first digital camera), on a mini-tripod;
a vintage Canon FT, with some telephoto and wide angle lenses,
and a couple of spacers and adaptors.

Next, two of my three: the Spotmatic, and the blunt-snouted Nikon D40 on a Sony tripod, new acquisitions. It's interesting to compare the old and new: the Nikon is bulky but quite light, as much of it is plastic. The old Pentax is heavier, but it is very solidly built, and a pleasure to use. It's a hassle, of course to get film processed and scanned into digital format, but I've found it rewarding to go back and experiment with that medium. And by the by, I wondered if that Nikon will still be operating in 40 years' time!




The old Canon is also in good working order, it's been left with me by a friend, for safe-keeping. It also has an early TTL metering system.