January 2022

My film camera collection has grown through various approaches. Sometimes it’s lusting after a specific model, and waiting patiently for the perfect example to come-up for sale. Sometimes it’s been seeing something on the shelf of one of my two local brick-and-mortar camera shops, and having it capture my imagination. Other times it’s been seeing a derelict camera in an auction listing and thinking I can restore it myself (often successfully). And still other times it’s been discovering something in an auction lot I wasn’t expecting, and being pleasantly surprised. But no matter how the cameras make their way to me, not all of them work properly, and not all are good candidates for subjecting to my rapidly growing but still amateur-level knowledge of camera repair. That’s where sending a camera to a professional comes into play, and I’ve learned — and continue to learn — a great deal about that exercise. This article captures some of the insights I’ve gleaned from years of sending my film cameras off for some TLC, and the obscene amount of money I’ve spent in the process.

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