Repairs and Thoughts
Diptych #31
Many of you will know this already: I don’t really enjoy doing recaps of entire years, though if you take a look at my last post from 2024, I did attempt to sprinkle in some information about the good things that happened in 2024, especially regarding this blog. One of those good things that I didn’t mention was returning to a hobby I enjoyed for many years before it became prohibitively expensive to do so: camera gear repair.
Just before the holidays rolled around, I was on Ebay looking for a specific old lens (a Helios-89 30mm f/1.9 to be exact), and I got sucked in to 8+ hour ordeal of researching old lenses and cameras and finding out if I could fix any of the broken ones that’d been sitting on Ebay, sometimes for over 6 months. And, as it always seems to go, I never got around to picking up that Helios-89 lens I was originally looking for…
When I first picked up a Micro Four-Thirds camera back in 2012, I did a lot of repairs. Mirrorless cameras, like my Olympus E-PL1 at the time, were fairly new and allowed us to adapt most lenses ever manufactured, any brand to any brand, and I enjoyed the hobby of picking up old camera bundles and lens lots off of Ebay and seeing what I could fix up for a few years. It was incredibly inexpensive to do so too, and several of the lenses and cameras I picked up have become essential to my look for both video and photos.
Judging by my Ebay purchase history, these sort of deals dried up in 2015 or so. One of the last things I bought was a Vivitar branded 28mm from the mid 1980s that looked like someone spilled coffee inside it the day they bought it and never attempted to clean it. And that cost me $56 in as-is / parts condition. A far cry from the $20 shipped lots of cameras and lenses I managed to pick up just a few years prior.
I don’t have any empirical evidence as to why this was the time when older lenses started getting expensive on the used market, but it’s pretty easy to believe that it’s exactly because of why this old gear was interesting to me. It can still be used! Modern mirrorless cameras have only gotten better and better and adapters were being manufactured by third parties to adapt practically anything to anything. I think videographers at the time really started to pick up on this.
At the time, I was shooting with an Olympus OMD E-M5, an RJ Speedbooster 0.71x and a whole suite of Canon FD glass that I’d picked up from all these sales. 50mm f/1.4 S.S.C., 35mm f/2, 100mm f/2.8, and that Vivitar 28mm f/2.8 that took three days of cleaning to get back to normal. I was pretty happy with what I was shooting, but I started looking at my old Canon 5d Classic on the shelf and wondering if it was time to dust it off and try shooting full-frame again.
The 5D, a Yongnuo 50mm f/1.4, and 35mm f/2 became my kit pretty soon after, and it’s a setup I still use to this day and I love the photos I get from this kit. I have, however had the urge to tinker and thankfully, the market for used gear has really turned around since 2022 or so.
Most of the gear from the mid-90s on is pretty complex for me, as I’m just a hobbyist with a few eyeglass screwdrivers and a bottle of Goo Gone and SuperGlue. That kind of takes the Canon EOS system out of the picture for me as far as tinkering goes. The 5D and the Canon EOS / EF system is a great platform, especially now as they have moved on to RF mount and the price of entry has gone down significantly, but as far as repairability goes, it’s a little out of my league.
So that’s really all to say that I bought a bunch of stuff off Ebay (and a couple things from McKay’s) recently. All of it was broken and unwanted and I’ve spent some of my free time this past month and a half fixing it up and it’s been a blast!
The weather here has been pretty poor lately so I haven’t had time to use and test this gear the way I would like to. I do have test shots from most of the stuff I picked up though, and I hope to be able to make another post in a few months with lots and lots of photos of cool trees and good friends. Here’s what I’ve been up to:
Canon FD / FL 55mm f/1.2 non-aspherical $17 in “parts or not working” condition
This was one of the first pieces I worked on, so I didn’t get many photos of the process. This one had a seized mount, stuck aperture blades, fungus on the inside of the front element and is just in awful condition on the outside. As you can see, though the glass is in pretty mint condition. FD lenses have a tendency to seize up because of the grease used to make the moving parts (lens groups, aperture / focusing rings) feel really smooth, but grease dries up over time.
50mm is my favorite focal length, so I have a feeling I’ll be using this a ton in the future. Images have a really nice glow in high contrast settings which makes everything look a little soft and dreamy, which I like.
Opteka 85mm f/1.8 in Nikon F Mount $19 in “as-is” condition
This one had several issues as well. The aperture ring was spinning freely, two screws were missing off the mount causing a lot of wiggle between the lens and the camera, and the lens had sand inside of it. Like, a lot of sand. The aperture ring is held in place by friction while resting on a tiny little ball bearing, which is inset on the back side of the barrel of the lens. Luckily the ball bearing was rattling around inside the lens when I got it so I was able to put it right back into place.
As for the missing screws, I’ve found that eyeglass kits from dollar stores are really good for finding just the right little screw for most camera gear. Eye Glass Emergency Kits from Family Dollar are the ones I usually go for as they have 6 different sizes of screws, and they’ve never let me down.
This 85mm is interesting, as it’s sold as an APS-C only lens, meaning it shouldn’t cover the full-frame sensor on my Sony A7s, but it absolutely does. 85mm isn’t one of my preferred focal lengths, but I do love using it for portraits. Extremely sharp at f/4, though it does flare like crazy. Sadly, mine did not come with the included lens hood.
Nikon Coolpix 990 $30 “parts only” condition 3.2 MP - 3X Optical Zoom
Y’all know i love a swivel camera! This one was in great condition but is sadly suffering from the same thing this entire line of Coolpix cameras suffer from: a weak battery door. The door is locked shut with a tiny piece of plastic that is now 25 years old, and nearly every example of this camera will come with the batter door broken. This makes them very inexpensive on the used market.
I haven’t gotten around to fixing it yet, but there’s an easy solution. The battery door is directly next to the tripod thread on the bottom of the camera. So with a wide quick-release plate, like a Manfroto style QR for instance, it covers the bottom of the camera where the battery door is and once tight, holds the door closed.
This one came with everything! Wide angle adapter, 2gb CF card, strap, power adapter, a/v cables, manuals. I haven’t used it much but I think it will be a lot of fun to have at parties and when I’m hanging out with friends!
The two things that can make old digicams like this annoying to use are storage and batteries. There’s a lot of older cameras without modern battery replacements, as they used some sort of obscure rechargeable battery that is no longer in production. There’s also a lot of older cameras that take XD or SmartMedia or worse: SFM.
The Nikon Coolpix 990 doesn’t have any of these problems, as it takes 4 AA batteries and compact flash cards 4gb and under. Rechargeable AA’s and old flash cards are very easy to source and I already had extras of both.
DXO One $96 in “like new” condition 20mp 1” sensor 32mm equivalent lens f/1.8
Here’s something I didn’t have to fix up at all! I picked this up at Mckay’s in the box with all the original accessories and a 8gb micro SD card. I checked the shutter count while I was charging it up for the first time and the previous owner only took 31 photos with it!
The DXO One is a camera I will likely do a full post about in the future, as it’s a very unique camera. It has a low resolution dot matrix display which displays a pixelated black and white representation of the scene and draws a box around what is in focus. It can be connected to a smartphone via lightning or usb type c, however, the standalone function of the camera is what has always drawn me to it.
Since it shares the same sensor as the Sony Rx100 MK III, but with a fixed 32mm equivalent f/1.8 lens, I know that it is capable of some wonderful photos and I’m looking forward to using it more and taking it literally everywhere since it’s practically keychain sized!
Kodak Funsaver Lens Mod Project
I’d been thinking about making one of these for awhile now, but when I found this free Kodak Funsaver disposable camera with a completely exploded battery, I figured it was time. Infinite disposable camera photos! Gory Matthews sticker for some flair!
Vivitar 135mm f/2.8 in m42 mount $12 at my local camera shop
Thankfully this one didn’t need too much work either. The aperture ring has a switch on it to set it to auto which had seized up, so the lens was locked wide open, but one single drop of AutoBright Super Penetrating Lubricant got it loose and it’s working like new again. We had a big, low moon for a few nights last week and I got out to take a few photos with it and I’m really happy with how these turned out!
Tokina Wide-Auto 28mm f/2.8 Nikon F Mount $9.95 at Mckay’s
For the most part, this lens was just really hazy from moisture getting into the lens over the years. I took it all apart and cleaned each element and took it out to a show and it’s working just fine now. I’m really happy with the photos from this guy.
Lastly, I have two lenses I’ve just got all finished up tonight! I don’t have any test shots to show y’all with these but I think they are gonna be a lot of fun.
Industar 61 53mm f/2.8 in m39 / LTM $8 in “parts or not working” condition
As is typical of these lenses, all it really needed was tightening every screw used to put it together. There’s about a dozen screws in total and thankfully this copy wasn’t missing any of them, but as they loosen up, the focus ring and aperture ring can seize or bind making it impossible to use.
I tightened everything up and put a layer of clear fingernail polish over each of the screws to prevent them from backing out again. I can’t wait to use this lens!
Zenit IR 85mm f/1.6 Nightvision Scope m42 mount (free!)
This is, of course, not really a lens, but the optical part of a night vision system. I was able to successfully mount it to my m42 thread mount adapter and focus with it, though if this forum post is any indication, I don’t expect a whole lot from this as far as optical quality goes.
My plan is to follow the forum users lead and purchase a focusing helicoid for m42 mount, which will allow me to focus much closer than three meters away. I also plan to cut out some paper apertures to stick inside the adapter between the lens and the sensor to reduce the amount of light coming through the lens and hopefully sharpen up the photos a little.
I have a couple things I’d like to say before I go. First off, it’s really cool and very fun to fix things. I’m not an expert at all and I have broken a few things over the years in my attempts to fix them, but overall, it has saved me a vast amount of money and it has been a really rewarding hobby.
There’s so so many used lenses in shops and on ebay and places like Keh and MPB. You don’t even have to buy the trashed stuff like I do, there’s a ton of this old gear that is in perfectly working condition for very little money. Buying used is cool!
Well, that’s it for this week! I hope you enjoyed the photos! If you’re looking for found media, please check out my page on Archive.org for the full list of digitized media. If you have any questions, feel free to send me a message right here or drop a comment below. If you haven’t already, please check out the suggested posts below! or any of my other previous posts here. Thanks so much for checking out this week’s edition of Diptych!
See you soon!
—Forrest
