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Nikon F/F2 Repair In The US?

qqphot said:
I got a note today saying he'll be accepting more work in a couple of months, which seems reasonable. Much better than just taking in everything and building up a years-long backlog!
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My experience is that once he accepts the work and gives you a timeline , he pretty much sticks to it
 
Jim from ICT serviced a Leica R lens for me. His price is slightly on the higher side, but the work is good. And he even include a video showing you the work done.
 
blee1996 said:
Jim from ICT serviced a Leica R lens for me. His price is slightly on the higher side, but the work is good. And he even include a video showing you the work done.
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I think he charged me something like $350 to do a CLA on my Apollo F body and to overhaul/calibrate my FtN meter. This included replacing a bad cell in the meter.

I'd had another company try to fix this camera and they wanted to charge me $250 but couldn't manage to actually improve the camera. I ended up paying only $100 for some minimal cleanup they did but still felt ripped off.

There is nothing more expensive than cheap work I consider ICT's price for this quite reasonable given that he managed to make a metering head work pretty much bang on when no one else would touch it or could do it properly.

I also like the fact that he will not accept work until he has a clear line of sight to getting it done within a reasonable amount of time. There are fewer and fewer techs working any more and they're swamped. To me ICT's model makes a ton of sense.

I have found that both ICT and DAG keep their delivery promises pretty well. So does YYE, if you pay the fast turn around premium.

There are other good techs I've done business with in the past couple of years. All are busy, and some are impossible to get ahold of. So to find some that does a proper job of setting expectations, doing great work, and keeping their promises is a delight.
 

Very well said. These guys have to make a living. It is expensive to play with 50+ year old toys.
 
Yes. I'm happy to pay a good chunk of money to ensure there's at least one more old camera in the world with a new lease on life, provided it gets done well without lots of back and forth or interminable delays!

It's just frustrating to send a camera off into the void, have to hound the repairer for months or years to get even a status update, and then receive it back only to find it in worse shape than it left in.
 
My cousin tried to have her mint Spotmatic serviced. She was gifted the camera with the 8 element 50mm 1.4 Super Takumar. The camera actually traveled with the original owner by steamship luxury liner (Atlantic to UK) back in the day.

Some fellow charged her for a CLA but all he did was do a bad job replacing the foam. I touched it up and it's working, still should have a genuine proper service.
 
I have a well-loved Nikon F2 that was serviced by Vermont Camera Works, It works fine. (Vermontcamera.com) The seller I bought it from uses them a lot.
 
My FM2n was gifted to me from a fellow bicycle forum member who noticed I enjoyed photography. He had no use for it, was his father's. The camera sat in a closet unused over 20 years. Cosmetically it was like new. Shutter was sticky and slow, it needed a complete. I took a chance on Gus Lazzari restoring it. Took an exorbitant amount of time. Price was reasonable and work was flawless. The camera is in out of the box condition. It's one of my favorite cameras although I should use it more.

EDIT:Looked and Gus has stopped taking on new work. Oh well.
 
I don't think I've seen a recommendation for Dean's Camera Repair in Torrance, CA in this thread so here it is. He repaired the shutter in my Nikkormat FT3 last year and did a great job. I'm about to send my FM in to him for some minor repair work as well. I assume he'll work on the F/F2 but I've never asked.
 
This probably won't help for an F or F2, but note that ICT does have a store on eBay. However the offerings there are limited to a few specific cameras and lens types. I got in Jim's queue by buying the "repair service" (really just an estimate) for a CLA on a beautiful F3HP I brought back from Japan, and he was very responsive, I'm guessing at least partly to maintain a good rating on eBay. He did a great job on the F3, and a 180/2.8 that seemed like it had an overly stiff focus ring (although it turns out it was pretty close to normal in Jim's experience).
 

That's what I did too. If buying the "repair service" on ebay gets you into the queue, it's well worth it.
 

Was he accepting F3s for immediate work, when you purchased via the ebay store? What was the queue process like in that case?
 
qqphot said:
Was he accepting F3s for immediate work, when you purchased via the ebay store? What was the queue process like in that case?
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He responded on eBay within a day or two of my purchase (paying the diagnostic fee) to tell me how to ship it to him. Then, he must have looked at my F3 within a day or two after receiving it. He called me to discuss things. I mentioned some evidence of shutter capping, based on three or so rolls of film I had put through it. He then sent me an invoice for labor, parts, and return shipping. I paid that and about 10 days later I had the camera back in my hands, along with a USB stick of photos he took during the repair. I am a very happy customer.
 
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