Appreciation post: fixed a 1978 Canon AE-1 with a stuck shutter for a local teacher

She brought it in last Tuesday, said it was her dad's and she wanted to use it for a class project. After three hours of careful work with my smallest screwdriver set, I found a tiny piece of old foam seal had jammed the mechanism. What's the oldest camera you've brought back from a similar kind of jam?

4 comments

4 Comments

dakota4153mo ago

Is a jammed shutter really that big of a deal to fix?

william_garcia3mo ago

Like wesley_jones said, it's a small part with a big job.

wesley_jones3mo ago

Depends on the camera, some are a nightmare.

linda1141mo ago

Yo, wait - nobody's talking about the ribbon cable. That little flat wire that connects the shutter assembly to the main board? It's paper thin and snaps if you breathe on it wrong. Some cameras have it folded in the worst spots so you gotta disassemble half the body just to get to it without tearing it. Had a buddy spend 3 hours on a Canon just for that tiny cable to break at the last second. That's the real nightmare nobody warns you about.