Camera repair classes?

[Visually Conscious]

Hey,

I wanted to question why aren't there many camera repair classes available. I'm sure if you live in Japan or Germany then this will be more accessible however, in the US, is there such a thing?

 

[Sirius Glass]

I suspect there is not enough of a market to support people to sign up. If anyone will train more camera repair people it will be companies' like Canon and Leica and the curriculum will emphasize cleaning pixel sensors.

 

[Leigh B]

Correspondence school training was available in many trades for decades, but no more.

That's because the GI Bill paid for that training for veterans of our various wars.

That ran out 20 years after we left Viet Nam, so the schools closed.

I took the course from National Camera in Colorado.
It was quite good, covering all available technologies and methods.
Of course, that was in the early days of photography, before flash existed.

- Leigh

 

[Visually Conscious]

Correspondence school training was available in many trades for decades, but no more.

That's because the GI Bill paid for that training for veterans of our various wars.

That ran out 20 years after we left Viet Nam, so the schools closed.

I took the course from National Camera in Colorado.
It was quite good, covering all available technologies and methods.
Of course, that was in the early days of photography, before flash existed.

- Leigh

Ah I see, it's a shame. The people who does know how to repair is dying and sadly it should be a skill that is pass down to others.

 

[Leigh B]

The people who does know how to repair is dying and sadly it should be a skill that is pass down to others.

The real problem is that products are no longer repairable, courtesy of a certain large Asian country.

Manufacturers used to buy parts to make 10,000 products, but only built 9,000 of them.
The remaining parts fed the repair industry, to keep those products working for years to come.
But that does not benefit the factories that make the products in the first place.

The modern process is to make all 10,000 products, with no parts allocated for repair.
If a product fails, you replace it with a new one. That's one more out the factory door.
Shipping new product keeps factory workers employed. Repair techs aren't in that equation.
With no repair parts, and no repair literature, there's no way to repair a failed product.

- Leigh

 

[Bill Burk]

Sad that's true. I don't have the skill. I tried to just tighten the lead curtain on a Spotmatic F tonight and first thing I did was split the head off the worm setscrew.

 

[Visually Conscious]

The real problem is that products are no longer repairable, courtesy of a certain large Asian country.

Manufacturers used to buy parts to make 10,000 products, but only built 9,000 of them.
The remaining parts fed the repair industry, to keep those products working for years to come.
But that does not benefit the factories that make the products in the first place.

The modern process is to make all 10,000 products, with no parts allocated for repair.
If a product fails, you replace it with a new one. That's one more out the factory door.
Shipping new product keeps factory workers employed. Repair techs aren't in that equation.
With no repair parts, and no repair literature, there's no way to repair a failed product.

- Leigh

Sounds disappointing but I understand.

 

[Andrew K]

Hello

member of a dying breed here. I've been a camera technician since 1989, and still repair film cameras (in fact that's most of what I do).

Contrary to what people may say you can buy spare parts for most things. One big change in the way things are repaired is that sometimes you have to buy a complete "module" rather than a discreet component, which can make the price of a repair uneconomical.

What do I mean by this? Say something breaks in a lens. Sometimes you have to buy a complete unit (eg aperture unit or IS unit) rather than just replace a aperture blade or broken part in a IS unit. I've seen something as simple as a switch break on a main PCB and rather than replace the switch (which is not available on it's own) you have to replace the whole board.

This is why camera technicians (who are not "factory" technicians) sometimes do "non standard" repairs - things like running jumper cables between 2 pints on a camera flex - rather than replacing the flex, or lapping and relubeing a lens helicoid rather than replacing the unit.

As for repairing film cameras you make do, using second hand parts when available, making non factory adjustments (bending things), or even making replacement parts from scratch (lens guides for example). The frustrating part is when it takes you 1 1/2 hours to get to the part you need to repair only to find the part is broken and no replacement is available. Some people just don't understand if you have a broken aperture blade you can't just put a new rivet in..it broke for a reason, and you need to replace it.

One of the biggest problems today is the foam that was put under the metal bars that hold down the prism's on many cameras. The foam is degrading, and removing the silvering from the prism. And you can't get replacements. Chinese made K1000's are the worst offenders - 1 in 2 would be showing desilvering.

I do agree that it is a dying art. I don't do repairs full time anymore. I have a friend who is 65 and has been repairing cameras all his life. He was factory trained by several manufacturers, and over the years has repaired most brands of camera. (He's also the one who taught me how to repair a Minolta SRT - did you know to do a service properly you need to replace 21 light seals, including some on the back of the mirror box and under the prism!).

We were sitting around a couple of months ago, and he basically asked me to come over and practice repairing things, and he would teach me how to repair pretty much anything he knew how to repair. His reasoning was similar to above - its a dying art, and he is hoping as I'm 14 years younger than him I can keep it going for a little while longer..

Anyway - enough ranting. If you were in Australia I'd be happy to teach you

Cheers

Andrew

PS - how did I learn? I saw an add for a camera technician at Canon, applied, sat a practical test (here's a service manual, here's a camera - pull it apart. After a while they said put it back together. I did that - twice, and got the job. I was there for 5 years, and wanted to learn to repair 120 cameras, so I went to the main professional camera repairers in Melbourne, and learnt Hasselblads and Mamiya, plus leaf shutters and a few other things. Left after a year to run my own custom black and white lab...but that's another story

 

[AgX]

I'm sure if you live in Japan or Germany then this will be more accessible.

I never heard of such classes here.
There was not even vocational school training specialized in camera-building/-repair.

To the contrary I learned of such being offered in the US.
There also are textbooks published in the US on camera repair.

I know of no such textbook published here.

 

[Visually Conscious]

Hello

member of a dying breed here. I've been a camera technician since 1989, and still repair film cameras (in fact that's most of what I do).

Contrary to what people may say you can buy spare parts for most things. One big change in the way things are repaired is that sometimes you have to buy a complete "module" rather than a discreet component, which can make the price of a repair uneconomical.

What do I mean by this? Say something breaks in a lens. Sometimes you have to buy a complete unit (eg aperture unit or IS unit) rather than just replace a aperture blade or broken part in a IS unit. I've seen something as simple as a switch break on a main PCB and rather than replace the switch (which is not available on it's own) you have to replace the whole board.

This is why camera technicians (who are not "factory" technicians) sometimes do "non standard" repairs - things like running jumper cables between 2 pints on a camera flex - rather than replacing the flex, or lapping and relubeing a lens helicoid rather than replacing the unit.

As for repairing film cameras you make do, using second hand parts when available, making non factory adjustments (bending things), or even making replacement parts from scratch (lens guides for example). The frustrating part is when it takes you 1 1/2 hours to get to the part you need to repair only to find the part is broken and no replacement is available. Some people just don't understand if you have a broken aperture blade you can't just put a new rivet in..it broke for a reason, and you need to replace it.

One of the biggest problems today is the foam that was put under the metal bars that hold down the prism's on many cameras. The foam is degrading, and removing the silvering from the prism. And you can't get replacements. Chinese made K1000's are the worst offenders - 1 in 2 would be showing desilvering.

I do agree that it is a dying art. I don't do repairs full time anymore. I have a friend who is 65 and has been repairing cameras all his life. He was factory trained by several manufacturers, and over the years has repaired most brands of camera. (He's also the one who taught me how to repair a Minolta SRT - did you know to do a service properly you need to replace 21 light seals, including some on the back of the mirror box and under the prism!).

We were sitting around a couple of months ago, and he basically asked me to come over and practice repairing things, and he would teach me how to repair pretty much anything he knew how to repair. His reasoning was similar to above - its a dying art, and he is hoping as I'm 14 years younger than him I can keep it going for a little while longer..

Anyway - enough ranting. If you were in Australia I'd be happy to teach you

Cheers

Andrew

PS - how did I learn? I saw an add for a camera technician at Canon, applied, sat a practical test (here's a service manual, here's a camera - pull it apart. After a while they said put it back together. I did that - twice, and got the job. I was there for 5 years, and wanted to learn to repair 120 cameras, so I went to the main professional camera repairers in Melbourne, and learnt Hasselblads and Mamiya, plus leaf shutters and a few other things. Left after a year to run my own custom black and white lab...but that's another story

Thank you for the reply. Makes sense, I would like to learn but I'm from New York. I was thinking about taking a trip to either Germany or Japan to learn it.

 

[Visually Conscious]

I never heard of such classes here.
There was not even vocational school training specialized in camera-building/-repair.

To the contrary I learned of such being offered in the US.
There also are textbooks published in the US on camera repair.

I know of no such textbook published here.

That's awesome, where? I tried to google and had no luck.

 

[AgX]

I should have said "being offered in the US in the past".

 

[removed account4]

the north bennet street school in boston has taught camera repair in the past. a local repair man
who specialized in pre-electronic all mechanical cameras &c went there. their website doesn't list it these days
but who knows, if there is more than one or 2 students/interest, maybe they will add it again.
and i would imagine if working on old mechanical cameras &c since parts are scarce, you would also
have to learn how to machine your own parts, as some repair shops do in this day and age.

 

[Jim Jones]

Master repairmen, like other master artists, are born, not made. Some of the craft of repairing can be taught. The art of repairing is innate. When I was a kid 70 years ago, most small towns had a master mechanic who could repair almost anything from combines to televisions. If a part was unavailable, he made it or reengineered the broken equipment to eliminate the need for it. This is still done in some so-called backward countries where technology hasn't displaced creative thinking. Too many of today's certified mechanics know enough to pass a certification test, but not enough to fix problems not covered in their books and computers.

 

[Andrew K]

A suggestion. See if you can get hold of some of the old National Camera Service manuals. They were supplied to students who took their mail order course. I only knew of 1 tech who did the course. He was an accountant who decided on a change of career path mid life and learnt his craft via these books. While I don't 100% agree with all the techniques they taught they did provide a good grounding. He turned out to be a very competent technician who ended up specializing in Leica's - he would even sew his own shutter curtains for screw mount cameras.

Camera books website lists quite a few repair manuals. and you can find lots online. There are also the Tomosy books on basic camera repair and the ones by Ed Romney are good for a basic guide - but exercise care. The Russian camera repair guide by Maisenburg is fun - it is very Soviet, but the repairs are effective.

Best way to learn is get a service manual, get the camera and have a go. If you start with a broken camera what harm can you do?

As for Jim's comment about master repairmen. Yes, they exist, but there are few of them. The reason is not ability, but economics. If you spend an hour making a new part for a job you've quoted 1 1/2 hours labour on you end up losing money on the repair. This is the problem today. I've spent 3 hours fixing a leaf shutter, and it ran perfectly. 3 days latter it would stick again after a few shots. So I tried again. End result? Shutter worn, 6 hours spent on it, no charge to customer.

 

[Leigh B]

A suggestion. See if you can get hold of some of the old National Camera Service manuals. They were supplied to students who took their mail order course. I only knew of 1 tech who did the course.

I graduated from that course. I thought it was quite good.
I was already an experienced tech when I took it, so I was more critical than a novice.

I went on to repair Nikon and Hasselblad cameras, and still do.

Best way to learn is get a service manual, get the camera and have a go.

I have quite a large library of original service manuals.

- Leigh