Photoshopped¶
I know eBay is evil. And I also know I shouldn’t use pseudo witty titles for my posts. So consider me guilty in both cases…
As it seems to be hard or at least expensive to get my Canon EF to work again (I spotted a cable that’s loose which could be the cause of the problems, but isn’t necessarily and soldering it back on will require either extremely fine soldering skills or pretty much complete disassembly of the camera, so I’m not sure this is going to happen. Besides, the last time I paid €16 just for a new set of batteries – that replace the original mercury batteries the camera is supposed to take, which makes just testing this a bit expensive), so I decided to buy a replacement camera on eBay. Many 1970s SLRs are being sold right now and it seems quite cheap to enter the field now as loads of people sell their complete equipment. When you’re looking for just a single element things are still cheap but a bit more expensive.
Well, cheap? Expensive? You tell me. Those machines are thirty years old. So if they were computers or digital cameras they’d be worth nothing now, so in a way they’re expensive. On the other hand, in comparison to their original prices these cameras are quite cheap. What does amaze me, though, is that despite many cameras being on sale there seem to be enough people willing to bid on them. So it’s really hard to get a really sweet deal. And it’s impossible to get a sweet deal for one of the more rare or high end models. Even the EF I have seems to be one of those, so I decided to save some money and settle for the fairly common AE-1 of which I managed to get a somewhat used model for €25 including shipping. It does have the fairly common battery flap problem (but unlike in my T-70 that’s non-essential as there’s no pressure on that flap and it can be easily taped shut.
I still had to spend another €9 on a new battery, though. Those half size AA 6V batteries aren’t cheap! But I was told to better get the more expensive lithium ones as the cheaper variants may just not work in the cold – and it’s winter after all! Once I had the battery, the camera worked like a charm. With a really smooth shutter button (apparently you just close a contact which triggers an electromagnet to open the shutter – which explains why – unlike the EF – the AE-1 doesn’t work at all without batteries).
More evil eBay shopping tomorrow…
