The Camera Craftsman: Timeless expertise for camera repairers

[Andreas Thaler]

The Camera Craftsman was a periodical trade publication for camera repairers in the US that appeared from 1955 to 1980.

It discussed photographic equipment and its service/repair, and featured articles on specialist topics and industry news. It is a rich documentation of camera technology of its time that is still relevant and timeless today.

Legendary, for example, are the two technical articles by Larry Lyells on the Canon AE-1 and Minolta XD11 (XD, XD7), which provided an incomparable, detailed, yet generally understandable insight into the latest camera technology of the time.

The Camera Craftsman series is available in its entirety on Learn Camera Repair (for a fee).

Ideal and indispensable for DIY self-study.

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See also

Technical literature for camera repairs

The number of English-language specialist publications on newer (SLR) cameras repair is manageable. I think I have compiled the most important titles here: The Camera Craftsman, SPT Journal and SPT Service Notes were published periodically. Editions of repair/service manuals, C & C...

www.photrio.com

How-to guide DIY service/repair for electromechanical SLRs: Where can I find information on repairing specific cameras? (part 5/8)

Excerpt from an issue of the SPT Journal. Fortunately, all the information we need for servicing and repairing our electromechanical SLRs is available on the web. Some of it is free, some of it is paid. The first port of call for information is learncamerarepair.com (LCR) Many issues of the...

www.photrio.com

 

[Alex Benjamin]

I wonder if I can still make it to the repairmen's dinner in Philadelphia...

Thanks for these resources, Andreas.

 

[4season]

I rarely visit that part of town, but I've wondered if the guy operating as The Camera Trader had any connection to the old National Camera or Infotech. He's a pretty good source for junk parts cameras.

 

[Andreas Thaler]

I wonder if I can still make it to the repairmen's dinner in Philadelphia...

Thanks for these resources, Andreas.

 

[MattKing]

Not just the USA.
In Canada as well.
When my friend left Canon Canada and set up his own repair business, he subscribed and was able to purchase - for what was then a quite expensive sum - the entire back catalogue, to help serve as an ongoing reference library for his work.

 

[Andreas Thaler]

Not just the USA.
In Canada as well.
When my friend left Canon Canada and set up his own repair business, he subscribed and was able to purchase - for what was then a quite expensive sum - the entire back catalogue, to help serve as an ongoing reference library for his work.

I'd give my retirement pension for those NatCam documents!

 

[lumoStoria]

The Camera Craftsman series is available in its entirety on Learn Camera Repair (for a fee).

I know that these are invaluable information sources for the camera repairer (as is the SPT Journal) and are hard to find elsewhere. However, am I the only one that thinks that the current fee ($4.69 per issue) is a bit steep for an electronic copy? Sometimes, I also noticed that the scans were not of best quality, especially when the articles contained photographs. Isn't there a better/cheaper way to get this information in modern scan quality?

 

[Andreas Thaler]

I know that these are invaluable information sources for the camera repairer (as is the SPT Journal) and are hard to find elsewhere. However, am I the only one that thinks that the current fee ($4.69 per issue) is a bit steep for an electronic copy? Sometimes, I also noticed that the scans were not of best quality, especially when the articles contained photographs. Isn't there a better/cheaper way to get this information in modern scan quality?

I have a clear opinion on this, though not everyone agrees with it.

Gene Pate’s Learn Camera Repair is what made it possible for us to work on newer SLRs in the first place. He introduced SPT and Craftsman when these publications were still largely unknown.

Acquiring the rights, scanning and compiling them into an index, and hosting the content was a labor-intensive process that he had long shouldered himself; the downloads used to be free. Not anymore.

I’ve personally been an LCR customer since the very beginning, and if I can contribute financially to ensuring this unique archive continues to exist, I’m happy to do so.

 

[Andreas Thaler]

Isn't there a better/cheaper way to get this information in modern scan quality?

On eBay and camerabooks.com, you can find individual issues in their original format and print quality (hard copies). However, they cost several times more there including shipping than on LCR.

 

[lumoStoria]

I have a clear opinion on this, though not everyone agrees with it.

Gene Pate’s Learn Camera Repair is what made it possible for us to work on newer SLRs in the first place. He introduced SPT and Craftsman when these publications were still largely unknown.

Acquiring the rights, scanning and compiling them into an index, and hosting the content was a labor-intensive process that he had long shouldered himself; the downloads used to be free. Not anymore.

I’ve personally been an LCR customer since the very beginning, and if I can contribute financially to ensuring this unique archive continues to exist, I’m happy to do so.

I understand your point of view, Andreas. The price model of Learn Camera Repair seems to be a controversal topic in the community and I do not want to get into troubled waters here. However, I'm an advocate for free repair information on the Internet. Hobbyist repairers are often on a budget. Donation models are OK for me and I donate for Butkus regularly. Paywalls are something I do not appreciate for content that is just a copy of someone else's work decades ago. At least, you do not charge for your excellent, original repair tutorials where you probably invested a lot of time and resources .

On eBay and camerabooks.com, you can find individual issues in their original format and print quality (hard copies). However, they cost several times more there including shipping than on LCR.

In one of my other hobbies, vintage HiFi repair, I often do it this way. I buy the hard copy of the service manual (not cheap, indeed), make a high-resolution scan, post-process scans, create a searchable PDF, and sell the hard copy again. However, this doesn't scale when hundreds of people have to do it over and over again. I would also not have a problem to provide my PDFs to the community for free if I was not afraid of copyright infringements.

 

[Andreas Thaler]

At least, you do not charge for your excellent, original repair tutorials where you probably invested a lot of time and resources .

Thanks!

What I’m trying to do is apply the knowledge of the old masters (Larry Lyells!) to current problems.

Over the past 40 to 50 years, new issues have arisen due to aging. These weren’t documented back then, particularly plastics that have become sticky inside and outside the SLRs.

I can’t pass off other people’s knowledge as my own and charge money for it.

My goal is to help ensure that Japanese SLRs from the hybrid era (the transition from purely mechanical to electronic control) have a future. Far too many lie broken in closets, are discarded, or are permanently ruined by botched repairs.

Thanks to Master Lyells and others, this doesn’t have to be the case.

If there were enough professionals willing to service SLRs like the Canon T90, Minolta (Maxxum, Alpha) 5000/7000/9000 AF, Nikon F4, etc., my reports wouldn’t be necessary. But these SLRs are not yet recognized as economically viable for professional work.

Anyone who finds my reports useful is free to use them, including professionals. The only thing I would wish for are new professional repair options that are affordable even for less affluent users, and repair reports.

And people should cite the sources from which they draw their knowledge. First of all, that would be honest, and second, it would be helpful for assessing the quality of the information. Not every DIY repairer is up to date on the latest research. We learned all of that in college—it was the most useful part of our studies.

That brings me to a new topic—the last post for today