Camera generation 3000: The end of do it yourself?

[kl122002]

The only thing I could say, is to restore and preserve the good cameras that we still could have.

Since the internet shopping boom, during the earlier stage the cameras,like Rolleiflex, Leica M were having more original parts, and their appearance are much better. I could mostly restore them without much efforts.

But today I have seen many comes in a lot of damages, like drop, unprofessionally opened, wrong adjustment or the swapped wrong parts... I could only repair 6 over 10 given gears back to the factory spec I know and the rest are just parts waiting to fit into right camera.

 

[Andreas Thaler]

In my experience, the Nikon F4 from 1988 marks the limit for DIY, although of course I'm not a benchmark. At least their two main problems can be solved (replacing LCDs and fixing/cleaning/lubricating aperture control).

I don't know of any typical problems with the Nikon F5 and F6. But for me these are already „real computer cameras“.

 

[Andreas Thaler]

Not to mention an even bigger problem - and arguably the bigger problem hiding behind those words of yours: consumer greed.

What do you mean by greed in this context? Always have to have the latest camera equipment?

 

[koraks]

What do you mean by greed in this context? Always have to have the latest camera equipment?

Well, the greed of corporations was mentioned, but they can only flood us with a mass of useless or unsustainable junk if we, the public, are lapping it up with taste. As a society, we're greedy because we always want more - we want a new phone every year, not one camera but a dozen, we need to shoot more more more film, we want a new/different car every 3 years, ...and just look at the mass of junk piled up in an average home. The wind didn't carry all that inside - we deliberately bought it, and in the majority of cases, perfectly compos mentis.

In the past decade, over 14 billion smartphones were sold, on a population of around 8 billion. That's not the fault of greedy corporations. We did that. All of us.

 

[Andreas Thaler]

Well, the greed of corporations was mentioned, but they can only flood us with a mass of useless or unsustainable junk if we, the public, are lapping it up with taste. As a society, we're greedy because we always want more - we want a new phone every year, not one camera but a dozen, we need to shoot more more more film, we want a new/different car every 3 years, ...and just look at the mass of junk piled up in an average home. The wind didn't carry all that inside - we deliberately bought it, and in the majority of cases, perfectly compos mentis.

In the past decade, over 14 billion smartphones were sold, on a population of around 8 billion. That's not the fault of greedy corporations. We did that. All of us.

I agree.

I've amassed over ten Nikon F3s and I could have a domino day with my collection of focusing screens.

Domino Day - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[MattKing]

I sold a lot of cameras in the 1970s and early 1980s.
A small percentage of them had known reliability problems - direct from the manufacturer. Primarily Prakticas.
In all the years I did that, I never once had a customer enquire about longevity. Not once.
A very small number of people were interested in the availability of repairs.
People just weren't that interested in buying something to last for decades. They wanted at least a few years from a camera, but they expected that if they used it a lot, they would eventually replace it with something newer.

 

[bluechromis]

Some people say the era of non-repairability began well before the digital era. Cameras with standard electronic components, such as capacitors, could be repaired with available parts. But once custom circuit boards began to be employed, if the board failed this was not possible. Short scavenging a part from another camera, one was out of luck. Perhaps the Canon AE-1 series represented the beginning of this trend.

 

[mshchem]

Digital cameras will probably outlast the photos these cameras take.

 

[Chan Tran]

I sold a lot of cameras in the 1970s and early 1980s.
A small percentage of them had known reliability problems - direct from the manufacturer. Primarily Prakticas.
In all the years I did that, I never once had a customer enquire about longevity. Not once.
A very small number of people were interested in the availability of repairs.
People just weren't that interested in buying something to last for decades. They wanted at least a few years from a camera, but they expected that if they used it a lot, they would eventually replace it with something newer.

Yes! While the current digital cameras and smartphones are difficult to repair most of them don't need repair as their owners replace them when they are still in perfect working condition.

 

[Ivo Stunga]

Yes! While the current digital cameras and smartphones are difficult to repair most of them don't need repair as their owners replace them when they are still in perfect working condition.

Yet - I did replace their Tristar chip almost daily, up to iPhone 10. People are seeking repairs if that makes economical sense and user isn't neck deep in Apple's proverbial ass.

Chip ≠ Longevity. There are plenty of poor IC and PCB designs, and it so happens that Apple is known to make iffy design decisions - like placing high voltage rails next to data lines...

 

[Ivo Stunga]

As a society, we're greedy because we always want more - we want a new phone every year,

Can somewhat agree. But this could mainly be learned behavior, and manufacturers are the teachers here.
Was this behavior on display before, say, Apple made a yearly smartphone with 0 major innovation (justifying it somewhat) a thing?

Was discarding of plastic/single plastic products a thing before manufacturers saw a business model there and taught their customers just to throw away and buy a new one, because that's what generates recurring income?

 

[koraks]

I don't subscribe to the simplification you adhere to.

 

[Ivo Stunga]

Sure.

When I was growing up I didn't saw this behavior, especially en masse. People used and reused even the new and hyped magical material called plastics. People seeked repair, longevity was in center of the purchase decision. This, of course, is very country/economy dependent, alas.

Then the culture shifted, manufacturers started to tell us that the new gadgets aren't possible to repair, told us that you cannot trust the repairmen you trusted yesterday, they keep telling this today and refuse to sell parts, tools and manuals, a closed garden now and not for the benefit of population. Antitrust laws keep being blind to this.

Did people brought this change onto themselves unknowingly, or was there a force involved? I subscribe to the latter.

 

[koraks]

OK, good luck with that.

 

[Saganich]

Pretty much anything with a microprocessor is deemed "to complicated" to be repaired by anyone other than the mfg for top dollar or even at all. There are a bunch of right to repair laws slowly maturing on State level but so far haven't had much of an effect since mfg's can change their terms of use to get around the laws. In my building of 104 apartments we have an electronic recycling room and it is always full of not so old appliances.

 

[Nicholas Lindan]

"18 billion smartphones ..."

Men at some time are masters of their fates.
The fault, dear consumer, is not in greedy corporations,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

- Apologies to Willy the Shake​

​

 

[Don_ih]

was there a force involved?

No force is required to make people do the easiest thing.

 

[4season]

Stuff doesn't get repaired because we're too wealthy to bother: It's quickier, easier (and more fun!) to buy something new.

I imagine that Japanese camera companies became really efficient producers, such that most (western) consumers could afford at least a compact 35 mm camera, maybe even purchase it on a whim. It's a similar situation today with notebook computers and TV sets, where a person might conceivably visit a store to buy groceries, and impulse-buy a 55" TV set, simply because they can, without financial hardship.

 

[88E30M50]

For me, pretty much anything newer than the Canon A series starts becoming quite limiting on what I'm comfortable doing. When getting into the newer cameras, my work tends to be more of cleaning and maybe replacing broken battery doors. If a 40D starts throwing system errors, I'll probably move it to parts status as opposed to trying to fix it. I find joy in mechanical artistry and I just don't see an accessible level of that for me in the newer stuff.

I hate seeing society move from building equipment that would get handed down through generations and towards equipment that will possibly fail irreparably before the end of it's second decade. That is not just cameras. I own 2 Fiat Spiders. One is a 1969 and the other a 2017. In 50 years, which of those two will have the greatest chance of still running?

 

[Andreas Thaler]

With current technology, nobody knows what they are repairing. Modules are swapped. But what is going on in these modules remains a mystery.

It started with the ICs.

Nobody can understand how millions of transistors are connected. At best, only in principle.

The nightmare of every hobbyist who wants to understand things down to their core

 

[Ivo Stunga]

No force is required to make people do the easiest thing.

And the easiest thing is to keep the status quo - alas, it changed. Easiest for customer is to go to workshop next doors and receive repaired device in hours to weeks return time - not send your device to a rare manufacturer's shop in a county far away, spending this time in shipping alone, paying these shipping fee's, and often having nada in return, but a statement: buy our latest product...
It's easiest for workshops to buy from manufacturers and not participate in a hunt for a rare, extant beast. But they stopped selling you shit: you don't even own your device now...
All of this has changed and change requires work indeed. So, there was a force involved. And still is.

Remember the car commercials from yesteryears where independent car repair was compared to theft and rape? I surely do remember, and only human data traffickers remain corporations...

Stuff doesn't get repaired because we're too wealthy to bother: It's quickier, easier (and more fun!) to buy something new.

Depends on economy and available options - repair option being all, but successfully eroded away, with intent and work.

 

[kl122002]

With current technology, nobody knows what they are repairing. Modules are swapped. But what is going on in these modules remains a mystery.

It started with the ICs.

Nobody can understand how millions of transistors are connected. At best, only in principle.

The nightmare of every hobbyist who wants to understand things down to their core

Not just modules but also the washers and spacers under the screws

" what are they for?? I throw them away now the lens can't focus right, help!!"

That's I have heard most

 

[Ivo Stunga]

With current technology, nobody knows what they are repairing. Modules are swapped. But what is going on in these modules remains a mystery.

Oh, but some of us do know and they charge respectively, but still - a fraction from manufacturer's quotes.
Not me, though, I know shit. I'm just satisfied with being an useful idiot, and to provide a quality repair that makes economical sense by being able to identify the faulty module and replacing it with exactly the same part. Was. Because seeing how this progresses, I left repair industry some years ago whilst it still was in better health.
And only some manufacturers engage in modular design...

" what are they for?? I throw them away now the lens can't focus right, help!!"

With repair manuals that used to be shipped with every product some decades ago, that wouldn't be the case. But now we are forced to YouTube this or that step in the repair process.

Why aren't repair manuals available today? Try to get one, I'll be waiting.

 

[kl122002]

With repair manuals that used to be shipped with every product some decades ago, that wouldn't be the case. But now we are forced to YouTube this or that step in the repair process.

Why aren't repair manuals available today? Try to get one, I'll be waiting.

Perhaps we should have you tubes that is an introduction of the common pieces, like springs, washers, screws..

Some people just ignored the difference between spring vs solid washers

 

[Ivo Stunga]

Perhaps we should have you tubes that is an introduction of the common pieces, like springs, washers, screws..

Perhaps. I certainly wouldn't be against something that educates people, that raises awareness and understanding.