Film Camera Service – There exists within the classic film camera fraternity something of a mythology about Japanese cameras being ultra-reliable. They will ‘oohh’ and ‘aahh’ about how their 40-50 year old camera still works. The truth is they are often unaware that, while these things were made to a quality that no manufacturer outside of aerospace or military application would attempt today, they were made with the technology available at the time. Part of this technology included organic  lubricants which tend to vaporize and dry out over time and worse they used foam, A LOT!

WARNING! This article is unsuitable for those inclined to suffer camera hypochondria by proxy or have a nervous disposition. Viewer discretion is advised.

Now most film camera folk will be aware that light-seals and mirror bumpers tend to degrade but are usually blissfully ignorant of the fact that very often these cameras contain a lot of foam and rubber seals internally which just like the light-seals decay – this is what lies beneath the skin of many classic cameras and it’s a real problem. The internal seals are often close to precision mechanics – as the inner seals decay they tend to scatter fragments of foam and general goop into mechanisms which should be clean, and indeed, must be clean for the camera to work properly.

Lets take a look at what lies beneath two popular cameras in two cases of real life camera crime.

First up is what is probably the worst camera of the lot that I have dealt with which is the Pentax ME Super. Something of a femme fatale  – the ME Super is claimed by Pentax fans to be much loved but like any film noir vamp the interior of the ME Super is usually corrupted. Pentax fans claim it’s love but to me it seems more like lust – as soon as issues appear they discard the camera – rather like the private eye will dump the bad girl/temptress in a classic noir movie.

The ME Super contains a lot of internal foam seals plus rubber parts which are almost always in a poor state. Some of these are responsible for the strange case of the endless wind on for the camera – and wind up for its owner.
When I say a lot of foam I mean it – around 18 foam seals not including the mirror bumper or light seals plus an additional six rubber parts which decay. Three of those rubber parts will eventually cause the camera to suffer the famous ‘double wind’ issue where the camera will wind on repeatedly without ever charging the shutter. Two will cause the camera shutter speeds to degrade and slow down and the final one, the air piston buffer, will generally not cause an issue which is of small consolation when the camera fails entirely due to the other five rubber parts failing.

With the ME Super it’s not just the quantity of the seals it’s the size of the largest one and the proximity of many of these seals to the very sensitive shutter. The ME Super uses a vertical metal bladed shutter and like all vertical shutters it needs to be clean for fast operation. One bit of decayed light seal in the works can really mess things up but the real culprits will usually be the two rubber bumpers inside the shutter which almost always decay into glue. As if that’s not all bad enough the focus screen arrangement on an ME Super uses three seals, all of which are in close proximity to either the focus screen or the prism. Scattered pieces of foam on the top of the screen are impossible to remove without taking the prism out which is no easy job on the Pentax ME and one of the seals is in direct contact with the prism creating a risk of prism de-silvering.

Like most cameras which make extensive use of foam the internal seals on the Pentax ME Super require a full on service to replace them which usually involves a near complete strip down of the camera to its major components. The pictures give you some idea what’s happening inside the average Pentax ME Super. The camera may work now but ultimately it will become another victim of foam decay crime. Pentax owners often tell you how much they love the ME Super – few of them seem to love it enough to want to spend money having it serviced or buying one thats had a complete rebuild.

Now, its fair to say that a full on service for the Pentax ME Super is never going to be cheap. At least in the mindset of most modern film users. To be fair I had one tell me recently he couldn’t afford to pay for a service manual costing around £3! Less than a cup of coffee. I’d suggest in his case he picks up a cheaper hobby. A full blown service for the Pentax ME is quite a bit of work but its still cheaper than a plumber charged me for fitting some new taps. As ever everyone has to come to their own conclusions about value. I can only show and tell you what’s inside one of these cameras and leave it to you to (hopefully) do the right thing and get it serviced. Pentax wont be making anymore of them anytime soon so it makes sense to preserve what’s left – buying another cheap one is just kicking the can down the road.

Now lets look a camera made a generation earlier than the ME Super and the camera closest to my heart, the Minolta SRT Series. The SRT in its earliest form used around 14 internal foam seals. As production progressed over the next decade and a half Minolta progressively removed foam seals and dampers from inside the camera. The very last production SRT-100X model reduced the count to around 6. While these seldom cause major problems other than crumbly seal material getting on the focus screen the fact that they are failing is usually a sure sign that the camera will be having issues with its shutter speeds.

If the foam is going bad (and it always is) you can bet the lubrication has long gone from the shutter rollers which the camera is dependent on for accurate shutter speeds. Like the Pentax ME Super the Minolta SRT series can be holding a lot of dark secrets inside.  Unfortunately SRTs have a reputation for being unbreakable – users will claim the camera still runs perfectly. Experience servicing them tells a different story with shutter performance almost always seriously degraded due to lack of lubrication and dried out old foam getting into stuff. The SRT is less villain and more of a victim of foam ignored by the average user blissfully (or wilfully) ignorant of whats happening inside.

The worst of the internal seals is the bottom seal of the mirror box, absent in later models, which, as it degrades starts to shed foam fragments into the lower curtain rollers. Later ones swapped this problem for a different issue, like all good detective novels there’s a plot twist. Minolta stopped adding this lower seal and replaced it on later models with foam inserts into the springs on the mirror box in a devious plan to change the issues from the curtains to the mirror mechanism. These can lead to the mirror box failing as fragments of old foam get jammed into the various lever pivots and gum the mirror box up. Thankfully SRTs never have degrading foam near the prism but they do use a foam block under the meter galvanometer which is usually responsible for foam being spread over the top of the focus screen.

Like the Pentax ME super the only way you can resolve the decaying foam is a complete strip down to the major parts. The secondary mirror bumper for example is almost impossible to resolve without removing the mirror box and removing the sprung light-shield. Shockingly lots of service places will do a halfway house job (on the SRT and a lot of other cameras too). They’ll tighten the shutter rollers and squirt some powdered graphite in to make the camera feel smoother but its not a good way to approach the SRT – or any camera for that matter.

Like the Pentax ME Super a full on service is likely to cost around £120 but done well the camera will perform beautifully.

I have only selected two cameras for this article but almost all cameras from this age will tend to have similar issues. The Olympus OM-1 and the Canon FTb both suffer prism de-silvering due to foam around their prisms degrading and they aren’t the only ones to suffer from these kinds of issues. Thankfully the issues caused be degrading foam are almost always resolvable with a full service. So long as the foams decay is halted before anything is ruined beyond repair.

The biggest killers of old cameras are battery leaks, corrosion and foam decay. Foam contamination is easy to fix usually (so long as its not eaten the prism). Battery leaks (the worst crime to cameras of all) and bad corrosion can be fatal or at least prohibitively expensive to resolve.

One of the worst killers of old cameras is the classic battery leak. These can be far more destructive than many buyers and owners often realise. Cleaning the battery chamber is easy but fumes from decaying batteries can cause problems further inside the camera. Even I have been surprised at times. It’s another lesson in just what can be hiding even in cameras which appear fine from the exterior. Here’s a few pictures from the interior of two Minolta SRTs which contained battery leaks. Both would run albeit with some issues but the battery corrosion wont fix itself and left alone will eventually cause problems.

The third of the triumvirate of camera killers is corrosion – this is usually in partnership with decaying foam and/or battery leaks but can be down to just bad storage. Like foam, corrosion can be a hidden killer. Cameras which appear fine from the exterior appearance can often be hiding very severe corrosion internally. The camera may even appear to work, at least in terms of winding on and going click but underneath the skin it can be very different story. Unfortunately most cameras are very intolerant of corrosion. The mechanics inside are akin to a mechanical watch and rely on well regulated and lubricated precision parts and these are not rust resistant.

The pics above illustrated what can be lurking underneath that shiny exterior. The corrosion in one of these was severe and worse it was firmly entrenched in the shutter mechanism which relies on being clean. Other cameras have shown similar issues at times. Even small parts can be critical to the cameras operation. The small washer pictured above would cause the mirror to fail to reset properly. The corroded aperture follower could cause the meter to misread. A vintage camera is like a fine time piece and needs maintenance and care – few get it.

In many ways the safest cameras with the least foam tend to be very late model electronic cameras like the Minolta X-700 which uses almost no foam internally and none thats critical but late model electronic cameras like the X-700 were often built with plastic gears which are prone to failure, and critically, the electronics tend to be their weak spot. You can almost always clean foam in a service but theres not much to be done if a custom chip has failed or the main circuit board has cracked.

So wheres the crime? Well the crime could be laid squarely at the door of the manufacturers for using a materials which would degrade badly but in fairness I very much doubt whether any manufacturer ever imagined their products still in use 40-50 years after they were sold.

No, the real villains of the piece are todays camera buyers and users- The manufacturers prepared the crime but todays camera users are the ones committing it by failing to accept that these things are old and need servicing.
The most often heard defence against either buying a fully serviced camera or getting your camera serviced is that it’s expensive but it really isn’t that much in the grand scheme of things. As hobbies go classic cameras are relatively cheap. £200 would get you a fully serviced classic camera – less than the price of the cheapest digital you could lay hands on. I would say no one is making film cameras anymore but Pentax are and look at the price they are charging. £500 for a half frame point and shoot! Is it really so much to pay for a full service on your beloved classic?

While mentioning the new Pentax film camera I have read that Pentax have designed it with repairs and servicing in mind rather than designing it like a late model point and shoot which are almost impossible to repair. I just wonder how many of todays shooters will ever bother. Based on experience with classic gear I suspect not many which is a shame. Without viable film cameras then film photography will die – I think that would be a shame – maybe you do too.

I’ll discharge the jury at this point and, if you still wont get a service, I’ll pass sentence on you to expect dud photographs and a life sentence of endlessly complaining on social media that your £30 camera from eBay ‘is perfect apart from…’ I’ll also sentence you to hard labour packing up another dud camera and standing in a post office queue to return it.

If you would like to know more about servicing cameras check out our Film Camera Service Manuals or check out Learn Camera Repair

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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.