Old Film Camera Repair

Does anyone know of a repair shop in Canada that fixes very old film cameras?

I have a Ricoh Five-One-Nine that was gifted to me many years ago. Sometime in the 1970’s the shutter stopped working. It’s been a display piece ever since.

It’d be nice to see it working again … realizing that repairing it would cost much more than what the camera is worth

If you strike out, there is a guy where I live that repairs just about anything.... and is extremely honest. But it will cost.... maybe going to KEH and buying a used working model might be close enough... maybe.

It might be worth inquiring on this site, probably the rangefinder forum:

https://www.photrio.co​m/forum/

Give it a few years and I'll probably have the same problem finding a watch repair shop.

I found a guy in Vancouver, but I need to do some checking to be sure that he's honest/reliable. Thanks for the suggestions Croasdail and thanks tomj for the link.

I have a feeling that either a spring has unwound (or is broken) or a gear has slipped ... or it's really dirty. If I manually wind it by turning the sprocket with the back off I can get it to release the shutter every 2-5 winds.

It turned out one of the camera shops in Edmonton has a repair guy in Ontario that they use for vintage cameras. The fellow seemed to have pretty good reviews and $40 to send it to him for an estimate was reasonable.

Should get it back in about 6 weeks ... sooner if it's not repairable.

Thats cool. The one camera shop in Calgary that has the YouTube channel... they had nothing? I know its not like edmonton and calgary are next door... but thought they would have references. But that ia good to know. I work up in Missisagua now (remotely) .. and have a few vintage cameras that could use a looking at... maybe if this works for you I'll give the chap a try.

The guys name is Douglas Banks (Enterprise, Ontario). Likely a one person repair shop, and probably why they give a huge range for the time it will take (6 to 12 weeks). If he's busy it will probably take closer to 12 weeks.

I asked McBain Camera in Edmonton, certain that I'd strike out since they were bought by London Drugs two years ago. I was really surprised that they still had a go-to repair guy that could service vintage gear.

Well, I got my camera back and it appears to be in good working order. As expected it cost likely several times what the camera is worth on the market to do the repair ($386 CAD incl shipping after tax or about $312 US), but it was something I wanted to do since the 1970's since it was gifted to me by a favorite uncle who just couldn't figure out how to use it, and it was my first decent camera.

I managed to shoot a roll of Portra 400 over the past few days, so should know soon if this thing is really any good I used my Sekonic light meter for half of the shots and an iPhone app called Lumu Power Light Meter for the rest. It's been fun slowing down to check settings ... but I know I definitely screwed up a few times with the wrong exposure.

One thing I noticed is that the rangefinder focus patch (superimposed secondary image) has really faded over the years to the point it was almost impossible to focus. I did some searching and came across this site with a simple fix that made a HUGE difference:

http://rick_oleson.tri​pod.com/index-165.html

For my first attempt I made the small rectangular piece of tape a bit too large. It worked well, but the fix improved with a slightly smaller piece of tape. When looking through the viewfinder the rectangle from the tape needs to be no larger (mine is very slightly smaller) than the superimposed focus patch.

I tried color gels over the front window (that you look through) but while this method improved things a bit it didn't come close to working as well as the tape trick.

Well, it looks like the camera works like new again

IMAGE LINK: https://photos.smugmug​.com …66%200009-X2.jpg&lb=1&s=A