So a few weeks ago I finally got to play lightly with my mother's old manual cameras. We found the AE-1 and a Sears camera. Both were declared broken a number of years ago, and left to slowly cook in the attic. Along with some nice lens. I originally went up there looking for filters, which apparently we don't have any of. Either way I forgot about it until a few days ago when I was considering buying a broken digital camera off eBay to take it apart.
After a few hours it occur ed to me I already had two broken cameras I could take apart. The AE-1 wouldn't advance, or let you press down the shutter, but otherwise looked okay. And it had been stored wearing a lens, so there wasn't much dust on it. The battery in it had worked, because the light meter functioned. But I had yanked the battery when we decided it was broken. We pulled all the batteries for recycling. So I took as many screws out of the AE-1 as I could, and found what could have been the problem.
Subsequent web searches also pointed to what I had fiddled with likely being the problem. However I needed a new battery to make sure. Popped in the new battery, and like magic the dead camera seems to function fine. I am going to replace the light seals (which have decomposed to a black tarry mess, then try a roll of film to see how it goes. It has some nice lenses though I think the base 50 mm is broken, as the aperture inside it seems stuck halfway open and doesn't seem to open all the way up. Most of the lenses also need to be cleaned. It looks like the auto winder doesn't quite work anymore, but it might just be since there isn't any film in it. Both flashes we had seem to still work, and refresh amazingly fast on eneloop rechargeables.
I'll see how it goes. It has taken some excellent pictures in the past.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Canon AE-1 Repair
So a few weeks ago I finally got to play lightly with my mother's old manual cameras. We found the AE-1 and a Sears camera. Both were declared broken a number of years ago, and left to slowly cook in the attic. Along with some nice lens. I originally went up there looking for filters, which apparently we don't have any of. Either way I forgot about it until a few days ago when I was considering buying a broken digital camera off eBay to take it apart.
After a few hours it occur ed to me I already had two broken cameras I could take apart. The AE-1 wouldn't advance, or let you press down the shutter, but otherwise looked okay. And it had been stored wearing a lens, so there wasn't much dust on it. The battery in it had worked, because the light meter functioned. But I had yanked the battery when we decided it was broken. We pulled all the batteries for recycling. So I took as many screws out of the AE-1 as I could, and found what could have been the problem.
Subsequent web searches also pointed to what I had fiddled with likely being the problem. However I needed a new battery to make sure. Popped in the new battery, and like magic the dead camera seems to function fine. I am going to replace the light seals (which have decomposed to a black tarry mess, then try a roll of film to see how it goes. It has some nice lenses though I think the base 50 mm is broken, as the aperture inside it seems stuck halfway open and doesn't seem to open all the way up. Most of the lenses also need to be cleaned. It looks like the auto winder doesn't quite work anymore, but it might just be since there isn't any film in it. Both flashes we had seem to still work, and refresh amazingly fast on eneloop rechargeables.
I'll see how it goes. It has taken some excellent pictures in the past.
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