My Ricoh GR1v : Is it on its last leg?

[tristan!]

Hello friends.

I've had my Gr1v close to 6 months now, with every intention of using it as my "everyday carry" camera. It's worked great. I'm always thrilled with the results and it's amazingly easy to use. I don't suppose you'll need much of an introduction on this popular camera.

Unfortunately, over the last few months, I've noticed an erratic series of aesthetic (non-fatal) failures.

Soon after I got it, my LCD had begun to malfunction, leaving several of the cells unresponsive. I gathered from forums that this was a common trait, and it did not affect my shots (confirm/deny?). Hell, sometimes the cells would come back to life for a few days. I knew enough about the camera's behavior that I learned to deal with it.

A few weeks ago, on vacation, I noticed a new set of cells became intermittently unresponsive. It was a bummer, for sure, but I was used to the finicky LCD by now.

Around the same time, I noticed that a few of the distance symbols in the viewfinder didn't light up as usual. And the "P", "500", and "200" shutter speed symbols seemed to be more permanently disabled.

Again, except for the shutter speed indicators, all of the above mentioned problems operate somewhat randomly and independently from one another.

I've dealt with these new issues for a week now, but the camera still acts normally. I have no reason to believe that the mechanics are malfunctioning, but I have yet to develop its last few rolls.

I know a camera shop somewhere here in the states is a Ricoh repair shop, but I fear that my own homebrewed fixes for my camera (snapping off the viewfinder bezel and gluing it back on) may make them reject a quote.

This little guy has given me a lot of hard work.

But, I ask APUG, is my sweetheart singing its swan song? Is my device devilishly defective? Is my baby badly broken?

 

[perkeleellinen]

I'd send it away for a repair, from what I've read both these issues are common and not too expensive to fix. My GR1s had a on fault with the wind mechanism - it would wind out the whole roll of film but then lock the shutter, but without film loaded the shutter worked fine. That was fixable too. I think the worst fault on these cameras is the one where the shutter sounds like it's working, but isn't. You only know about that after development. That issue always prevented me from getting a large backlog of films to be processed.

 

[tristan!]

I'd send it away for a repair, from what I've read both these issues are common and not too expensive to fix. My GR1s had a on fault with the wind mechanism - it would wind out the whole roll of film but then lock the shutter, but without film loaded the shutter worked fine. That was fixable too. I think the worst fault on these cameras is the one where the shutter sounds like it's working, but isn't. You only know about that after development. That issue always prevented me from getting a large backlog of films to be processed.

How does the camera hold up after the repairs? Do you believe that it won't just have the same problems in a year or two?

 

[perkeleellinen]

Mine has held up fine after repair. My understanding is that the faults are mostly a product of age and once fixed, they are fixed. My camera was repaired under warranty. However, I've just seen this thread which appears quite worrying for your LCD issue at least:

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