Overheard a young technician say 'just replace the whole mirror box'

I was at a camera shop downtown last Thursday helping a buddy with a jammed shutter on an old Pentax Spotmatic. This young guy comes in, maybe 25, and he tells my friend to just swap the whole mirror box assembly instead of fixing the sticky foam. Said it would save time. And I get it, time is money, but I remember learning how to scrape off that old foam and glue in new stuff by hand. Took me an hour on my first try but that camera kept going another 20 years after. Has anyone else noticed the trade shifting more toward swapping parts than actually repairing them?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_kevin23d ago

That "swap the whole mirror box" thing is exactly the problem. I spent a Sunday afternoon once replacing the light seals on a Nikon FM2 with a little tool kit and some patience. Now these kids act like a camera is a disposable toaster.

blake43223d agoMost Upvoted

Yeah I feel that @the_kevin, I had an FM2n with a sticky shutter and it took a whole afternoon with a tiny screwdriver and some isopropyl alcohol to get it working again. These new cameras are built like appliances where you just replace whole assemblies instead of actually fixing anything. It's a shame because the old stuff was meant to last generations if you just took the time to learn it.