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TIL a customer's complaint about my shutter cleaning changed how I do it
I used to always use compressed air first on shutter blades, but a customer in Seattle told me their Canon AE-1 came back with oil spots after I did that. I switched to using isopropyl alcohol and Q-tips on the blades first, then air for dust. It takes longer but I haven't had a single complaint since. Anyone else run into this with older shutters?
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cole_mitchell815h ago
Read something similar on a vintage camera forum last week.
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Seattle of all places too, where it's basically raining all the time anyway so you'd think the humidity would help keep the oil in check. I had a similar wake-up call with a Pentax Spotmatic where the customer said their negs looked like someone sneezed on them. Now I do the alcohol thing too, just on the blades that are actually sticky or oily. For real though, maybe the old Canon factory in Tokyo was just a bunch of guys spitting on shutters for good luck and we've been fighting that legacy ever since.
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