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Happy camper!
Sep. 15th, 2005 12:06 amOne of the things that I was going to blather about eventually in my ramblings about photography was the fact that I suffered a death in my camera equipment.
I had two 35mm Canon Eos bodies, a 630 and an Elan. The Elan was definitely the better of the two bodies, and after I registered for my photography class, I picked up some film, loaded up the Elan, and went shooting. There's a terrific run-down farm/ranch sort of on the edge of town that gave me some really good shots. The afternoon was perfect for lighting with lots of cool clouds in the sky and I had a great time shooting.
Then I processed the film.
About a third of the film was mostly blank. When I say mostly, some of the frames had like 20% at the bottom of the frame properly exposed.
Technical aside: when it comes to single lens reflex cameras (i.e. almost all 35mm cameras) there are two types of shutters, cloth and bladed. My two were bladed shutters, it consists of something like 5 blades that travel vertically. The other type, cloth shutters, travel horizontally.
The fact that such a small portion of the frame was exposed indicated a sticky shutter. A quick visual inspection showed something sticky on the shutter blades (cue Captain Obvious!). I figured the camera needed a clean and lube, maybe $50 or so. I sent a description of the problem off to my favorite camera repair place, Tempe Camera, and found out that it was a little more serious.
The problem was that a rubber bumper in the shutter assembly had rotted and was spewing rotted rubber throughout the assembly.
Price to repair? $150.
As much as I love this camera, it's around 15 years old. There's no way the camera is worth spending that amount of money on. So I started using the 630 and did some shopping on eBay.
The 630 worked well, it didn't have the same problem, and was producing consistent exposures. For our photography class we have to do manual exposures, after all, we're supposedly beginning students. There was one operational problem with the 630 regarding this: though it had a manual mode, the light meter did not work in said manual mode. So I'd have to meter it in one of the programmed exposure modes, switch to manual, then re-load the settings. Not very convenient.
I continued doing assignments with the 630, all went fairly well.
Eventually I found a pretty good deal on eBay, an Elan 7e with a Vivitar 28-300 zoom. The 7e is a 2001 camera, much more advanced than my Elan, and in addition to the lens it came with a extended battery grip which lets me use AA batteries rather than lithiums, so that'll save me some bucks. The 7e arrived today, and due to a shipping problem, the seller threw in a wired remote release, which is very good because it will let me do long "bulb" exposures up at the observatory.
And a really good thing about this? The 28-300 zoom works on my digital! Prior to this camera, before Russet gave me the Digital Rebel last year, I had the two Eos 35mm bodies, two Canon lenses (a 35-105 and a 100mm), and three Sigma lenses (a 28mm, a 75-300, and a 400mm). The problem was that the Sigma lenses don't work with the Digital Rebel! (the Canon lenses work just fine) This doesn't really surprise me, because like the bodies, the lenses were also over 10 years old. Speaking with a camera repairman last Friday in Las Cruces, he said that Sigma would modify the lenses to work with the Digital Eos line.
Well, now, at least, I don't have to worry about that! I'll still get them fixed if I can and then sell them on eBay. Actually, I'll sell 'em on eBay anyway.
Now here's the kicker. Monday, when I went to El Paso, I was planning on shooting my next assignment on the road. I opened the 630 and there was sticky stuff on the shutter blades.
Different camera, same problem. Second camera death.
Again, I shouldn't be surprised because it was the same age as the Elan, and that's the way these things go.
But at least now I have a really nice 35mm body and lens, the lens works on my digital, so although I don't have a backup body right now, things seem good. Thursday after my algebra class I'll be re-shooting the same place that showed the problem with my old Elan to see if I'm getting good exposures. The 7e shows almost zero visible wear, the previous owner (who was not the original owner) said he used it about ten times. I'll take it on the road when I go to Phoenix this weekend and see what I can do with it.
I still want to get yet another body as a backup, but it can wait. My worst possible case, should something happen to this camera, is I go to Amazon and get a Rebel K2 for $150 while the 7e is in the shop. It's new enough that repairing it will be a lot more viable.
I had two 35mm Canon Eos bodies, a 630 and an Elan. The Elan was definitely the better of the two bodies, and after I registered for my photography class, I picked up some film, loaded up the Elan, and went shooting. There's a terrific run-down farm/ranch sort of on the edge of town that gave me some really good shots. The afternoon was perfect for lighting with lots of cool clouds in the sky and I had a great time shooting.
Then I processed the film.
About a third of the film was mostly blank. When I say mostly, some of the frames had like 20% at the bottom of the frame properly exposed.
Technical aside: when it comes to single lens reflex cameras (i.e. almost all 35mm cameras) there are two types of shutters, cloth and bladed. My two were bladed shutters, it consists of something like 5 blades that travel vertically. The other type, cloth shutters, travel horizontally.
The fact that such a small portion of the frame was exposed indicated a sticky shutter. A quick visual inspection showed something sticky on the shutter blades (cue Captain Obvious!). I figured the camera needed a clean and lube, maybe $50 or so. I sent a description of the problem off to my favorite camera repair place, Tempe Camera, and found out that it was a little more serious.
The problem was that a rubber bumper in the shutter assembly had rotted and was spewing rotted rubber throughout the assembly.
Price to repair? $150.
As much as I love this camera, it's around 15 years old. There's no way the camera is worth spending that amount of money on. So I started using the 630 and did some shopping on eBay.
The 630 worked well, it didn't have the same problem, and was producing consistent exposures. For our photography class we have to do manual exposures, after all, we're supposedly beginning students. There was one operational problem with the 630 regarding this: though it had a manual mode, the light meter did not work in said manual mode. So I'd have to meter it in one of the programmed exposure modes, switch to manual, then re-load the settings. Not very convenient.
I continued doing assignments with the 630, all went fairly well.
Eventually I found a pretty good deal on eBay, an Elan 7e with a Vivitar 28-300 zoom. The 7e is a 2001 camera, much more advanced than my Elan, and in addition to the lens it came with a extended battery grip which lets me use AA batteries rather than lithiums, so that'll save me some bucks. The 7e arrived today, and due to a shipping problem, the seller threw in a wired remote release, which is very good because it will let me do long "bulb" exposures up at the observatory.
And a really good thing about this? The 28-300 zoom works on my digital! Prior to this camera, before Russet gave me the Digital Rebel last year, I had the two Eos 35mm bodies, two Canon lenses (a 35-105 and a 100mm), and three Sigma lenses (a 28mm, a 75-300, and a 400mm). The problem was that the Sigma lenses don't work with the Digital Rebel! (the Canon lenses work just fine) This doesn't really surprise me, because like the bodies, the lenses were also over 10 years old. Speaking with a camera repairman last Friday in Las Cruces, he said that Sigma would modify the lenses to work with the Digital Eos line.
Well, now, at least, I don't have to worry about that! I'll still get them fixed if I can and then sell them on eBay. Actually, I'll sell 'em on eBay anyway.
Now here's the kicker. Monday, when I went to El Paso, I was planning on shooting my next assignment on the road. I opened the 630 and there was sticky stuff on the shutter blades.
Different camera, same problem. Second camera death.
Again, I shouldn't be surprised because it was the same age as the Elan, and that's the way these things go.
But at least now I have a really nice 35mm body and lens, the lens works on my digital, so although I don't have a backup body right now, things seem good. Thursday after my algebra class I'll be re-shooting the same place that showed the problem with my old Elan to see if I'm getting good exposures. The 7e shows almost zero visible wear, the previous owner (who was not the original owner) said he used it about ten times. I'll take it on the road when I go to Phoenix this weekend and see what I can do with it.
I still want to get yet another body as a backup, but it can wait. My worst possible case, should something happen to this camera, is I go to Amazon and get a Rebel K2 for $150 while the 7e is in the shop. It's new enough that repairing it will be a lot more viable.
