Just overheard someone say 'you don't fix old cameras, you just make them worse'

I was at a diner in Boise last week and this older guy at the next table was telling his friend that any camera from the 70s or earlier is basically junk once the shutter starts sticking. He said trying to fix them is like 'polishing a turd' which I thought was pretty harsh. Idk, I've had pretty good luck bringing a couple of old Pentax Spotmatics back to life with just some new light seals and a CLA. Has anyone else run into that attitude from people who think old cameras aren't worth the effort?

2 comments

2 Comments

torres.sage1mo ago

I polished a turd once. It was a 1950s Argus C3 that I found at a garage sale for five bucks. The thing had fungus in the lens, the shutter sounded like a dying cat, and the rangefinder was so fogged up I couldn't tell if I was focusing on a tree or the moon. After three weekends of messing with it and spending more on parts than the camera was worth, I got it working well enough to take one blurry photo of my cat that looked like a ghost. Definitely not worth the effort, but sometimes it's more about the hobby than the results. But yeah, that diner guy has a point for anyone who isn't a masochist with too much free time.

the_pat1mo ago

That whole "polishing a turd" thing @torres.sage mentioned is actually how I feel about half the projects in my garage. It's the same with old cars, old furniture, everything really - people forget that sometimes the joy is in the fixing, not the finished product.