Camera & Large Format Camera Repair & Modification

[Plasticca]

I'm sure many APUG forum members remember Lens & Repro in NYC. They closed shop about a year ago after 50 years or so of being in business. A great asset of L&P was Frank Rubio Jr. who was their camera repairman for 15 years and trained by the US Military when he served in our armed services. Lens & Repro kept him from the public but many of you might know him. I was fortunate that L&P let me deal with Frank directly for many years. He repaired all sorts of cameras for me, especially the ones I broke trying to fix them myself. He repaired everything from 35mm, medium format to large format and made great modifications for me. He worked on many Graflexes and came up with ingenious ways to modify them to fit my purposes. In my many years as a photographer, educator and director of a non-profit educational photographic arts organization, I haven't met any camera repair person I trust and respect more than Frank. I'm writing here so that APUG forum members are informed that Frank has joined us at the Penumbra Foundation and has set up shop to do repairs and modifications. When Frank lost his job, we were very fortunate to recruit him to join us at Penumbra. Shortly, Penumbra will be purchasing special equipment, such as CNC machines, lathes, milling machines, and optical bench etc, so Frank can perform even more modifications such as making flanges, mounting barrel lenses in shutters, making wet plate collodion and alternative photographic processes equipment, etc. He is already converting standard film holders to be used for wet plate collodion so they can be used with large format cameras so that the cameras need no modification and he's set up to do many modifications now with the machinery he already has, such as mounting lenses on boards etc. For all you New Yorkers and Tri State Areans, he's conveniently and centrally located in mid-town Manhattan. I'm sure his services will be useful to many APUG members. For those of you who do not know us please visit us at www.penumbrafoundation.org. We are a non-profit photographic arts & education organization devoted to teaching early and alternative photographic processes. We're based in NYC. Frank can be reached by viewing his website at http://www.cameradoctornyc.com. I'm hoping this post will be found helpful to many APUG forum members.

Geoff