Pointless gripe...
The first of a the old Pentax S1a bodies I got one day was an "as-is" purchase that was on the bay for about 99 cents starting and I got it at a final bid of .99. The unmistakable smell was getting stronger the deeper I cut into the package. The slick and grimy camera was in my hand and sticking up the room. After a careful removal of the bottom plate and soon upper. It was clear the camera was a flood survivor. The seller probably did his best to keep it from rusting shut and he was successful at that. I looked at his other item that I still had a bid on and was still the soul bidder. It was an SV body and I was guessing that it will as well arrived embalmed in the same manner. So the S1a took, on and off, over a week to clean out with combinations of cotton swabs and chemical removers and degreasers. The penta-prism was a sloppy mess as well and the most unfortunate victim was the focusing screen or more to say the Fresnel lens portion. The shutter curtain was warped from the oil and the cleaners. In total the camera was mostly a wreck. Now, I should say that time and caution has at least provided a usable camera in the end. However, this was a flood victim and the solution was unavoidable. I recall at one of those user sight that a fella picked up an old SLR and it was not working smooth at all. A quick refresh about a minute later and two folks chimed in about shooting WD40 into the bottom of the camera. My mistake was pleading that he not do that and soon later a few folks jumped all over my objections. They pointed out that it worked for them and that if I've never tried it that I should stay out of it. I asked them which camera did it work on. I pointed out that that will be very bad for many parts of the camera. They all ignored me. About a week later, the same sluggish camera owner sent me an e-mail and asked if there was a way to correct the problem with a poorly responding slow speed... "oh well, I guess it take this to get some to listen."
The first of a the old Pentax S1a bodies I got one day was an "as-is" purchase that was on the bay for about 99 cents starting and I got it at a final bid of .99. The unmistakable smell was getting stronger the deeper I cut into the package. The slick and grimy camera was in my hand and sticking up the room. After a careful removal of the bottom plate and soon upper. It was clear the camera was a flood survivor. The seller probably did his best to keep it from rusting shut and he was successful at that. I looked at his other item that I still had a bid on and was still the soul bidder. It was an SV body and I was guessing that it will as well arrived embalmed in the same manner. So the S1a took, on and off, over a week to clean out with combinations of cotton swabs and chemical removers and degreasers. The penta-prism was a sloppy mess as well and the most unfortunate victim was the focusing screen or more to say the Fresnel lens portion. The shutter curtain was warped from the oil and the cleaners. In total the camera was mostly a wreck. Now, I should say that time and caution has at least provided a usable camera in the end. However, this was a flood victim and the solution was unavoidable. I recall at one of those user sight that a fella picked up an old SLR and it was not working smooth at all. A quick refresh about a minute later and two folks chimed in about shooting WD40 into the bottom of the camera. My mistake was pleading that he not do that and soon later a few folks jumped all over my objections. They pointed out that it worked for them and that if I've never tried it that I should stay out of it. I asked them which camera did it work on. I pointed out that that will be very bad for many parts of the camera. They all ignored me. About a week later, the same sluggish camera owner sent me an e-mail and asked if there was a way to correct the problem with a poorly responding slow speed... "oh well, I guess it take this to get some to listen."
This tale made me lol.
ReplyDeleteIn any forum there are those "I know everything guys" and continuously give wrong advice...
Beautiful camera the S1a! One of the next ones of mine. Silver, I take?
I must say that many moons ago, I followed the WD40 advice one of those guys who claimed it was safe and ended up creating a oily fog inside a camera rangefinder. That is one of the reason I took up camera repair as one of my hobbies.
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