Canon Sure Shot Supreme shutter button

[ShutterSpook]

Hello all!

I recently picked up a Canon Sure Shot Supreme in a charity shop for 5 quid. Thought it would be worth the price to just play around with it. I put a roll through it and found the shutter button to be incredibly temperamental. I'd have to REALLY press down hard on it to get it to take the photo. I've read elsewhere that the shutter button can be quite numb. I developed the roll and more or less all the shots came out more than satisfactory. The lens really is quite something.

Last night I put another roll into it (Kodak color 200) and no matter the amount of pressing, the camera just won't fire. However, It will fire when the auto exposure button is pressed. So it seems something's gone wrong underneath the big red button.

Anyone have any advice? I'd really appreciate it.

This is from the first roll I put in it, Fomapan 200, but shot as 100, as Fomapan doesn't have a DX code on the canister. Stand development.

 

[Jesper]

If you take the button apart you will notice that the bottom of it is painted with conductive paint that closes the circuit which fires the shutter. With time this paint wears thin and eventually there is not enough left to close the circuit. At least that was what happened to mine. I thought about glueing some tin foil as a substitute but I never got around to it.

 

[ShutterSpook]

Interesting! Is this a matter of just popping the button off or do I need to dismantle the camera?

 

[Jesper]

That was something I did 20 years ago so I don't really remember but it must have been fairly easy to disassemble since I'm not very good at it and I even got it back together again. The button is made of rubber and the bottom of it is covered with this paint that wears off with use (not a very good construction).

 

[ShutterSpook]

Throwing all caution to the wind, I unscrewed the three screws on the back (and the battery compartment), took the top off, added two pieces of tin toil, laid on top of each other, underneath the shutter button (with a bit of blue tac on the underside of the button), and voila! it works like new.

 

[Jesper]

Congratulations!
I remember it as a good camera.

 

[ShutterSpook]

I really liked the results from the first roll I put in it. Unfortunately, Fomapan's notorious history of being easily scratched pretty much ruined the whole roll. Only Ilford film from now on.

 

[RLangham]

I really liked the results from the first roll I put in it. Unfortunately, Fomapan's notorious history of being easily scratched pretty much ruined the whole roll. Only Ilford film from now on.

Really? I've had less scratching from bulk Fomapan 200 than from most commercial films I've used.