35mm grear cleaning??

I have all my fathers 35mm gear. I sadly lost my father in 1993 to a tragic accident and have never parted with his photography stuff. I really want to get it all cleaned and in working shape but have no clue were to start. Most of the stuff is not worth a lot monetarily but to me it is priceless. I have one working camera and one that seems to be set wrong or something that would need to be cleaned and a few lenses.

What is the best way to go about this?

The cameras are old sears and pentex cameras if that matters.

I would find a good camera repair shop that still has an elderly tech working for them - one who is familiar with working on older mechanical cameras. Phone around and let them know what you have. You should be able to find the best shop for the job but it may take a while and it may not be where you live.

What you need done is often referred to as a "CLA" - Clean, Lube, Adjust service.

www​.walterscamerarepa​irs.com/
www.abilenecamera.com/


The sears stuff is actually good, a ton of their cameras are just rebranded Ricoh bodies. I've had over 20 and they've been really great.

The lenses are real stunners, a lot were made by Samyang. The same Samyang still making lenses for DSLRs today. There was also some made by Mamiya and Tomioka(who was famous for making the lenses for thr professional bodied Polaroids).


They may not worth much in money, but they're damn good performers.

Pentax K has always been my favorite SLR system, never really liked Canon FD and Nikon F.

ThomasDidymus wrote in post #18016242
...and one that seems to be set wrong or something that would need to be cleaned and a few lenses.

As Skip said, "CLA". Over time, lubrication fails & shutter speeds tend to slow down. Sometimes you can cycle several times through each shutter speed. On the slower speeds, like 1 second, you can hear how long the shutter is open. After 50-100 times you should hear it speed up a bit. But the only real fix is "CLA".

I think Pop Photo published an article years ago about shooting a TV screen to check shutter speeds over 1/30 sec. It was based on the screen refreshing one field of video every 1/60 sec, so you could measure the differences on a neg or print.

Here's a guy who found a way to use sound. I suspect that you need to lock the mirror up to get a usable result:
http://www.photo.net …msg_id=00AEnZ&u​nified_p=1