Camera generation 3000: The end of do it yourself?

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Andreas Thaler

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Nikon, Canon, Sony and others - they all produce the digital cameras of our third millennium.

With shorter product life cycles than before for film cameras, manufacturers are outdoing themselves with increasingly finer-resolution sensors, faster electronic circuits or daring lens designs that seem to play with the laws of physics.


An eldorado for photographers

where the currency is of course gold, whose exchange rate is always high.

So it's understandable that owners of top cameras want to continue taking photos with them even if they become defective.


This is not a problem within a certain period of time

after purchasing a device that is up-to-date. Well packaged, it is sent to the manufacturer's customer service, who - upon request - can solve even the most difficult repair cases with original spare parts, executed by factorytrained servicepeople.

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As long as a manufacturer offers service for its camera, it does not have to be given up in the event of a repair.


If you're lucky, the damage is still covered by the manufacturer's statutory warranty and you don't have to pay for the repair. So I was happy about a brand new Canon L replacement lens for my DSLR because my copy was blurry.

Repairs for defective cameras or lenses that are still on the market are no problem, even if there is no longer a warranty. Provided you pay the price for it.


But after ten years

the repair service from the manufacturer usually ends.

From then on, your former top devices will be a thing of the past and only independent workshops will remain that may still be able to carry out repairs. Provided that their spare parts warehouse is full and they have the technical facilities and know-how to be able to repair high-performance devices.

Which of course costs money and may not be a wise financial decision given the new cameras and lenses that have now been released that are even more powerful.


A temporary investment

Anyone who always wants to work with relatively up-to-date photographic equipment will accept this for better or worse and see their photographic equipment as a temporary investment.

But for photographers who want to use their devices for longer, or for collectors, this is bad news. Who will take care of your favorites in the event of a problem if they have been forgotten by the market?


So all that's left is do it yourself

But who can repair as a DIYer highly integrated electronics? A screwdriver alone won't be enough, not even the soldering station in the hobby cupboard will be able to help.

And so it's understandable that you can only find sparse information on the web about how you can do something yourself.


DIY in fact ends

with cameras and photographic devices from the 1990s onwards.

Who knows DIYers who can repair a Nikon F5 or F6 or a Canon EOS-1 for film, which all can already be considered a camera computer?

So we can see that DIY for photographic devices ends with the third millennium of our era.


A virtual afterlife in the computer?

Perhaps the top cameras of the present and future will live on virtually as emulations in the computer. You then no longer repair at the table, but on the screen and play with the devices in a virtual workshop.

Who knows, in any case there are still enough photo devices from the past millennium left for repair attempts.

Assuming there will still be solder and crazy people who work with it 🙃
 
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ic-racer

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I have reached the age of infinite fulfillment; all my cameras will outlast me. One less thing about which to worry.
 
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Andreas Thaler

Andreas Thaler

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I've already arrived there too; I've been living in the 1980s for a long time in terms of photography.

A peaceful world, no surprises anymore and there is still so much to discover 😃

C.jpg


I carry this fitness equipment around with me on the street and I don't miss a thing 🙃

By the way, this is the Nikon F4, which I was able to get back to work with lighter fluid and graphite.

 
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Andreas Thaler

Andreas Thaler

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I don't know if DIY with screwdrivers and soldering irons is even popular anymore.

Many hobbyists and those interested in electronics have probably switched to microprocessors and their programming.

Maybe there are fewer people who can still do something with analog electronics. Just like the radio hobbyists and radio amateurs who used to be in every second household 😌
 

Laurent

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I'm more anchored in the 70's, my most recent camera is an AE1P and it's not the most used.
 

Ivo Stunga

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Knowing the measures and mileage manufacturers today are willing to go against repair, this reads like paper from bygone era. Manufacturers have no interest to repair your equipment reasonably and for reasonable price - they're interested and do everything, including lying, to sell you a new product.
They don't sell parts, they don't sell tools and knowledge, they invoke copyright and intellectual property instead of providing you with a repair manual.

Thus we - the repairmen and DIY enthusiasts - are left with empty hands and no tools to do anything but the simplest of repairs :smile:
 
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Chan Tran

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You just use your cameras until it breaks. When it breaks you can't repair it and even in the case of less than 10 years and the factory still repair it, the cost of repair is higher than replacement cost. So basically you just buy the camera and use until it breaks. But to many people that doesn't matter as they get rid of their cameras way before they have any problems at all.
 

ic-racer

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I've already arrived there too; I've been living in the 1980s for a long time in terms of photography.

A peaceful world, no surprises anymore and there is still so much to discover 😃

View attachment 364849

I carry this fitness equipment around with me on the street and I don't miss a thing 🙃

By the way, this is the Nikon F4, which I was able to get back to work with lighter fluid and graphite.


I think F4 is one of the best looking cameras. Many times I'm tempted to buy one just for the looks!
 
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Andreas Thaler

Andreas Thaler

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They don't sell parts, they don't sell tools and knowledge, they invoke copyright and intellectual property instead of providing you with a repair manual.

I'm not surprised that so many repair manuals for old cameras are freely available on the web. Obviously the manufacturers have nothing against it and do not insist on their copyright. They are simply no longer interested in their old products, which is understandable from a commercial perspective. Of course, you will search in vain for repair documents for current devices.
 
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Andreas Thaler

Andreas Thaler

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I think F4 is one of the best looking cameras. Many times I'm tempted to buy one just for the looks!

It also feels wonderful on the hand, eyes and body.

You hardly notice the impact of the mirror, it is heavy and you can use it to expose for longer shutter times than otherwise recommended.
 
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Andreas Thaler

Andreas Thaler

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You just use your cameras until it breaks. When it breaks you can't repair it and even in the case of less than 10 years and the factory still repair it, the cost of repair is higher than replacement cost. So basically you just buy the camera and use until it breaks. But to many people that doesn't matter as they get rid of their cameras way before they have any problems at all.

The admirer and collector becomes sad. High-tech as a disposable product.
 

Chan Tran

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The admirer and collector becomes sad. High-tech as a disposable product.

High tech is always disposable not serviceable. The reason? You can't have old high tech because regardless of how high the tech is there will always be higher tech afterward so a piece of high tech equipment will become low tech. It's not uncommon that a piece of high tech equipment last so long without any servicing that it becomes very low tech before it has any problem. You can collect high tech as low tech.
 

Ivo Stunga

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Not so long ago many of our beloved mechanical cameras were High Tech, @Chan Tran

Of course, you will search in vain for repair documents for current devices.
Yup, times have changed. And often not to the benefit of end users.
 

4season

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There's a hobbyist scene for vintage computing, game consoles, and tech gadgetry in general.

Sony is a relatively DIY-friendly company. Parts for many Sony products are available via Encompass. Sony camera product cycles can also be surprisingly long, with certain models of the RX100, A6x00 and A7 series remaining in production for years.

Typical digital camera are not built as fine machinery, so much as consumer electronics, incorporating flexible PCB, ASICs and subminiature connectors. There's not much soldered point to point wiring anymore. Nor is there much CLA work to be done unless the equipment is subjected to heat, humidity and dust. Replacing internal clock/memory backup batteries is sometimes an issue, but those batteries can last for many years.

But IMO, this trend of camera-as-low-maintenance consumer electronics was already visible during the 1980-90s film era, in products including Minolta's X700, and the Pentax MZ/ZX-series, which in many ways remind me less of a Minolta SRT or Pentax Sportmatic, and more like a Hewlett Packard laser printer, in their extensive use of composite materials and slippery polymers. As transition-era products, they're kind of a messy hodge-podge of old and new, the X700 more so than the Pentax.

But one thing's for sure: The rate of technological change from the 1970s until the present day has been staggering! In the 1970s, it was still possible to purchase a new camera containing no electronics more advanced than a photocell and a galvanometer. Then seemingly overnight, they were all polymers and composite materials, integrated circuits, stepper and linear motors, wrapped in lightweight powdercoated alloy castings! "Future Shock" indeed.
 

Laurent

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albada

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A bit of good news is that most capacitors on PCBs nowadays are not electrolytic (which dry out), but are a new invention called MLCC -- Multi-Layer Ceramic Capacitor. I doubt they will fail in a couple of decades due to drying out or decay. ICs and resistors seldom fail. These suggest that the most common problems in electronics will be cracks in flex-PCBs, bad connections, and poor contacts in buttons and potentiometers. Plus acid from leaking batteries destroying wires and connections. Most of those failures can be found and fixed DIY.
 

AnselMortensen

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I can fix my camera.
I'm stuck in the 1920's. 🙃
 

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Ivo Stunga

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A bit of good news is that most capacitors on PCBs nowadays are not electrolytic (which dry out), but are a new invention called MLCC -- Multi-Layer Ceramic Capacitor. I doubt they will fail in a couple of decades due to drying out or decay. ICs and resistors seldom fail. These suggest that the most common problems in electronics will be cracks in flex-PCBs, bad connections, and poor contacts in buttons and potentiometers. Plus acid from leaking batteries destroying wires and connections. Most of those failures can be found and fixed DIY.
Agreed, therefore what's stopping the DIY repairs is a 180° shift in culture and corporate greed rather the lack of skill and often misinvoked "impossibility" to repair these in small shops: just give us repair manual, chips, parts and PCB/flex modules, and that's all it takes.
 
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Andreas Thaler

Andreas Thaler

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A bit of good news is that most capacitors on PCBs nowadays are not electrolytic (which dry out), but are a new invention called MLCC -- Multi-Layer Ceramic Capacitor. I doubt they will fail in a couple of decades due to drying out or decay. ICs and resistors seldom fail. These suggest that the most common problems in electronics will be cracks in flex-PCBs, bad connections, and poor contacts in buttons and potentiometers. Plus acid from leaking batteries destroying wires and connections. Most of those failures can be found and fixed DIY.

When I think of repairability, I also think of the software that is needed to be able to adjust electronically highly integrated cameras. Including connections and know-how. As a DIYer you have no access to that - if these things even still exist.
 
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Andreas Thaler

Andreas Thaler

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Agreed, therefore what's stopping the DIY repairs is a 180° shift in culture and corporate greed rather the lack of skill and often misinvoked "impossibility" to repair these in small shops: just give us repair manual, chips, parts and PCB/flex modules, and that's all it takes.

You can get these parts from discontinued cameras, but nobody does it, at least you can't find anything about it on the web. Why is that?
 
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Andreas Thaler

Andreas Thaler

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As transition-era products, they're kind of a messy hodge-podge of old and new, the X700 more so than the Pentax.

That's what makes the X-700 so appealing.

Some things are known, others have yet to be discovered and data is already being processed - a bit of everything 😀
 

Chan Tran

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I might add that many of the new equipment were designed for easy assembled in the factory but not for taking apart. They were also designed not to be able to repair to component level for example if a capacitor fails you have to replace the entire PCB. So it won't be economically to repair a lot of these so call high tech equipment because when they are old their value are so low that buying a working unit of the same make and model is cheaper than replace a part. Your Nikon F3 is still worth $200-$300 but how much a much newer Nikon D1 is worth?
 
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