Hello everyone, Dhr. Foto from The Netherlands here. Pleased to make your acquaintance! I am looking forward to share some of my insights, but mainly to receive yours.
I am 26 y/o and from the south of The Netherlands. With the exception of a mirrorless digital Fujifilm I got a long time ago, I have not been a "photographer" for long, but only since a year or two ago when I found my fathers Minolta X-700. I tried it out and since then, I have been hooked on analog and digital photography alike. Since then, I have been developing my skills on three sides:
- I am slowly learning to take my time and improve my photography skills. Even though I get in the way of myself sometimes, I really like the following cameras: Minolta X-700, Yashica T5 (another old cam from my dad), Ricoh Mirai, Sony Mavica FD91, Canon PowerShot G1 - amongst some others! My favorite subjects are landscapes, human/nature dichotomies, industrial/apocalyptic environments and abstract settings. I would like to try my hand at portraits but I am not skilled enough yet.
- Since a year or 10, I have been fixing small electronics with a preference for video game consoles. Turns out that experience with these devices translates fairly well to cameras! So far, I have repaired a Rollei B35, two Petri TTLs, a Praktica LTL3, a Minolta Hi-Matic S, a Yashica Electro 35 GSN, a Olympus XA/A16, a Mavica FD91 and some digicams. I really want to broaden my skillset here, but I have ran into an issue: all repair shops around me I got in touch with denied any opportunity with "Our staff is currently too busy repairing cameras to teach a new apprentice". The hurdle to do so is very high; I really want to take a deeper dive into the fine mechanics but I lack the skills to have a repair end successfully. I also do light seal repair; I have fixed a Ricoh 500G and some of the cameras mentioned above this way.
- Finally, in order to really make the above activities work, I also make some tools: I build a film DSLR scanning stand with a carriage for a film holder and more importantly a shutter time tester. I will likely make a post about these some time in the future, since I have some questions regarding my results.
One question in advance to prevent issues: for posting information from a camera repair mentioned above, would it be more useful to make one post per repair or bundle all of my repairs in one "Cameras I have repaired"-thread? I see both and I don't know what the preference here would be.
See you around and may you have a wonderful 2025,
Dhr. Foto
I am 26 y/o and from the south of The Netherlands. With the exception of a mirrorless digital Fujifilm I got a long time ago, I have not been a "photographer" for long, but only since a year or two ago when I found my fathers Minolta X-700. I tried it out and since then, I have been hooked on analog and digital photography alike. Since then, I have been developing my skills on three sides:
- I am slowly learning to take my time and improve my photography skills. Even though I get in the way of myself sometimes, I really like the following cameras: Minolta X-700, Yashica T5 (another old cam from my dad), Ricoh Mirai, Sony Mavica FD91, Canon PowerShot G1 - amongst some others! My favorite subjects are landscapes, human/nature dichotomies, industrial/apocalyptic environments and abstract settings. I would like to try my hand at portraits but I am not skilled enough yet.
- Since a year or 10, I have been fixing small electronics with a preference for video game consoles. Turns out that experience with these devices translates fairly well to cameras! So far, I have repaired a Rollei B35, two Petri TTLs, a Praktica LTL3, a Minolta Hi-Matic S, a Yashica Electro 35 GSN, a Olympus XA/A16, a Mavica FD91 and some digicams. I really want to broaden my skillset here, but I have ran into an issue: all repair shops around me I got in touch with denied any opportunity with "Our staff is currently too busy repairing cameras to teach a new apprentice". The hurdle to do so is very high; I really want to take a deeper dive into the fine mechanics but I lack the skills to have a repair end successfully. I also do light seal repair; I have fixed a Ricoh 500G and some of the cameras mentioned above this way.
- Finally, in order to really make the above activities work, I also make some tools: I build a film DSLR scanning stand with a carriage for a film holder and more importantly a shutter time tester. I will likely make a post about these some time in the future, since I have some questions regarding my results.
One question in advance to prevent issues: for posting information from a camera repair mentioned above, would it be more useful to make one post per repair or bundle all of my repairs in one "Cameras I have repaired"-thread? I see both and I don't know what the preference here would be.
See you around and may you have a wonderful 2025,
Dhr. Foto
