Why Buy From Us

Why buy from us: – Almost all of our cameras are fully serviced. We don’t just give the camera a wipe, and fit new light seals and call it serviced. Each of our premium cameras is completely stripped to remove old foam, any signs of corrosion and replace any worn parts with fresh factory spares. Quite frequently we will replace old leather with factory spares stocks to give the camera a ‘new’ feel.

The cameras are then tested on our professional grade testing gear and retuned to the original factory specification to guarantee a long life and precise performance.

Shutter speed testing on our ZTS V tester — Shutter speeds assessed and tuned using our professional grade ZTS V shutter tester.

Lens collimator — Camera and lens checked for film plane accuracy and lens infinity focus on our professional collimator.

Almost all film cameras from the golden age are now around 50 years old and while the manufacturers did an a amazing job, the fact is, many of these cameras have large amounts of internal foam which is decaying. Plus their lubricants are almost always dried out giving poor performance. In addition, no matter how carefully stored, they can suffer corrosion from either the breakdown of the interior seals or age related corrosion. Lenses, likewise can suffer dried out lubrication making their focus stiff or sloppy. We almost always rebuild lenses to use modern lubricants which will reduce the risk of oil vapour and give the lens a long running life.

Decaying foam inside a classic camera — No matter how shiny on the outside old cameras are usually full of decaying foam.

Camera internal cleaning — Our premium cameras are always fully serviced – which means full disassembly to remove old foam and corrosion.

Camera lubrication — We always clean and re-lubricate the shutter mechanism to ensure accuracy and reliability.

Lens strip, clean and re-lubricate — We strip and rebuild lenses to ensure glass surfaces are clean and the focus helicoils are lubricated to give precise and smooth focus.

We take pains to make sure our cameras will operate perfectly and will most likely last another 50 years though we recommend periodic servicing to maintain the cameras accuracy.

The pictures above show some of our work and below we show a walk through of an average service to show you how much work we put into our cameras to make sure you get the very best.

We want people to enjoy classic film cameras and to have a real pride and joy of ownership with a trouble free camera. Our average is most peoples excellent because we love what we do, maybe that’s why you should buy from us.

Have a look through the servicing we do so you can be sure you really are buying the very best there is – you can’t buy a new film camera today but you can be assured that one of ours is the closest you can come to a new film camera experience.

A TYPICAL SERVICE ROUTINE…

Camera servicing at High5cameras - Top cover comes off — Camera gets it top cover removed for initial checks

Initial shutter speed testing — Camera gets an initial test to assess its shutter.

Camera strip down — Start of a strip down of the camera.

Old internal seals are failing throughout.

Old seals cleaned out and replaced with fresh seals.

Mirror cleaning - this one is filthy — This one had a very dirty mirror – the mirror will come out for cleaning.

Mirror after cleaning — After cleaning the mirror is now perfect.

Shutter rollers are cleaned and re-lubricated.

Shutter charging gear is cleaned and lubricated.

Slow speed escapement cleaned and refitted.

Camera mount ring assembly removed for cleaning.

Focus screen assembly removed for cleaning.

Base of camera cleaned out and charge gear lubricated.

Reassembled for testing — Camera roughly re-assembled for testing.

Shutter test and tuning — Camera shutter is tuned to manufacturer specifications.

Meter check with calibrated light source — Camera meter is tuned using a calibrated light source.

Lens stripped and rebuilt — The supplied lens is stripped , cleaned and rebuilt.

Lens cleaned, checked infinity collimated and ready fo camera. — Lens cleaned, checked ,infinity collimated and ready for camera.

Frame spacing and advance feel checks. — Checking for accurate frame spacing and advance feel.

Viewfinder optical block cleaned and checked.

External hardware cleaned and re-assembled.

Why Buy From Us – Final test and camera is ready for sale.

SERVICING REALLY DOES PAY OFF…

The service pictures are only a very brief overview of what goes on. A typical service for one of our cameras takes around 8-12 hours and we wont ever sell a camera we dont have complete confidence in. If you want to see a complete service from start to finish then we have service guide tutorials available for sale which walk through each step of the servicing.

Here are some before and after pictures – the before pictures were typical of cameras purchased from both eBay and some dealers stated as working. You can see that although these may ‘work’ in the sense that they wind on and go click, the overall experience will be very sub-optimal. What we can’t show in the pictures is the poor overall feel of an unserviced camera…

BEFORE - Crumbly mirror bumper and internal seals around focus screen. — BEFORE – Crumbly mirror bumper and internal seals around focus screen.

AFTER - Internal seals replaced and a fresh mirror bumper plus mirror and prism screen cleaning. — AFTER – Internal seals replaced and a fresh mirror bumper plus mirror and prism screen cleaning.

BEFORE - Focus screen filthy, fragments of old foam, filthy mirror, viewfinder optic, prism and focus screen. — BEFORE – Focus screen filthy, fragments of old foam, filthy mirror, viewfinder optic, prism and focus screen.

AFTER - Full servicing and cleaning of all optical parts. — AFTER – Full servicing and cleaning of all optical parts.

BEFORE - 1000th is verging on the slow end of 500th, curtains show a 7% deviation against a maximum allowable of 5% - The camera will return poor results with an average stop error of 1.5 stops and is inconsistent. — BEFORE – 1000th is verging on the slow end of 500th, curtains show a 7% deviation against a maximum allowable of 5% – The camera will return poor results with an average stop error of 1.5 stops and is inconsistent.

AFTER - After proper lubrication and adjustment the camera now shoots at exactly 1000th as per teh manufacturer specification and consistent. Curtain deviation is at 2% well inside the 5% allowable. — AFTER – After proper lubrication and adjustment the camera now shoots at exactly 1000th as per the manufacturer specification and is consistent. Curtain deviation is at 2% is well inside the 5% allowable.

WE DONT JUST SELL CAMERAS…

We don’t just sell film cameras, we use them too and many of our stock cameras are used by us – that’s how much confidence we have in them! We are happy to use them as our own cameras. That’s why you will see some cameras as film tested – we have actually shot live film in them for our own photography.

Some samples of our photography using cameras we have serviced are below…

SAMPLE SHOT - One of our XG-Ms (now sold) shooting a 50mm and expired Fuji 400 converted to black and white. — SAMPLE SHOT – One of our XG-Ms (now sold) shooting a 50mm and expired Fuji 400 converted to black and white.

SAMPLE SHOT - One of our X-300s (Now Sold) shooting Expired Fuji 400 converted to black and white with a 28mm lens. — SAMPLE SHOT – One of our X-300s (Now Sold) shooting Expired Fuji 400 converted to black and white with a 28mm lens.

SAMPLE SHOT - One of our X-700s (Now Sold) shooting Fuji 400 with a 35mm lens. — SAMPLE SHOT – One of our X-700s (now sold) shooting Fuji 400 with a 35mm lens.

SAMPLE SHOT - One of our SRT-101s (Now Sold) shooting FP4 with a 35mm lens and yellow filter. — SAMPLE SHOT – One of our SRT-101s (now sold) shooting FP4 with a 35mm lens and yellow filter.

SAMPLE SHOT - One of our XD7s (now sold) shooting a 50mm and Ilford HP5 with a red filter. — SAMPLE SHOT – One of our XD7s (now sold) shooting a 50mm and Ilford HP5 with a red filter.

SAMPLE SHOT - One of our MXs (now sold) shooting a 50mm and Ilford XP2 — SAMPLE SHOT – One of our MXs (now sold) shooting a 50mm and Ilford XP2.

Check out our cameras with confidence now

Mel

Mel is one of the driving forces behind High 5 Cameras and writes all our articles.

Starting serious photography back in 1972. Over the years she got to shoot film with most of the major brands in 35mm and large format as both a studio photographer and content provider for websites in the early life of the web. These days she is rediscovering photography and has become the GOTO person for knowledge on camera repair advice.