For the aperture problem - my AE-1 had it until I had it serviced, after which it was fine. One important thing to note is that your photos may only be overexposed with certain lenses, depending on their maximum aperture and the one you have set it to. When I was looking at my 28mm f/2.8 lens, it was stopping down to what it should have done because the aperture blades didn't have to travel as far when stopping down to f/16 or whatever. With my 50mm f/1.4 lens, however, it was only getting to around f/8 when it was set to f/16, because the initial wide open position means the blades have to travel further. This will depend on focal length as well. As negative film is very lenient with overexposure, you could well not really notice this in your photos, even if they are technically over-exposed. And that would only really be if you were going for a smaller aperture anyway. I found that setting it to f/8 or wider didn't show the problem.
from my experience working on the mechanism of a number of cameras of that era, though not this one specifically, is that the mirror and shutter are chained together in their actuation. pressing the shutter release button will first let the mirror loose for a spring to pull it up and once it's up in position, a small lever on the side of the mirror box hits a trigger for the shutter to fire, and similarly the mirror won't go down until the shutter "tells" the mirror that it's finished. so my assumption is that cameras with slow mirrors are not gonna have issues of partial exposure because the shutter won't be open until the mirror actually reaches the extent of its travel
I have a Canon AE1-Program...had a wicked Canon cough. I took off the baseplate and used some "MONKEY-LUBE" (which is a bearing and firearms lubricant) and placed a few drops into a very specific section of the camera. After a few cycles, the camera is quiet and seems to function delightfully. I'm waiting for my second roll of film to be returned to me to test. My first roll of this camera came out blank so I don't know if I messed up or the camera did...but I'm SO excited to see if I can get this puppy to puppy. Thanks for the video. It's good to know that I'm not the only one struggling with this. ;)
I have seen people use squeaky cameras like this for a long while... It's better for it to be fixed though. The aperture squeal (sometimes randomly) prevent the blades to not close down when the aperture is automatically controlled (shutter speed priority, and in the case of the A-1, aperture priority too, as it's controlled by the body and not the ring ont the lens). If you shoot manual, it will always close the blades at the right value I am pretty sure. I had an AE-1 program that was doing the aperture not closing enough thing quite reliably. I did end up very carefully move the magnet out of the way and reach the gears from the bottom and put a very small amount of oil there myself and it actually worked. For the "will the wheels come off" thrill, I recommend using soviet camera equipment, For two cameras of the same model, your result is on a spectrum going from "This is a very nice surprise. It's like a cheap leica with nice stolen Zeiss glass" to "This miserable pile of trash was assembled by Dmitriyovich on a Thursday when he had not drunk enough Vodka yet to do his job properly and so it's all fucked up"
The aperture issue is still there in manual mode, because the lens is still wide open before you click the shutter button, after which it stops down to your set value (unless you have pushed the DoF preview).
@ no it is not. It’s a separate mechanism in manual mode. The lens get stopped down by the lever at the bottom of the mount. (The one also connected to the stopped down metering button (it is not a dof preview strictly speaking)). In manual mode the aperture control lever does nothing on most canon A series (maybe with the exception of the AV-1). In pre-set aperture mode on the FD lens this lever becomes how the lens signal to a body what is the current aperture. If you use a FTb camera for example this is that moves the “racket” in the match needle meter display. This is why there’s a partial inter-compatibility between the canon FD and FL mounts too.
@@Ybalrid Well I can say from direct experience that it absolutely did have the aperture problem when manually controlling the aperture on my AE-1. It was literally how I could easily demonstrate it to my repair guy. I was directly setting it to f/16 or f/22 and it was only getting to about f/8. Are you sure about that explanation? Either way there is a mechanism that is stopping the lens down when you fire the shutter in manual mode, because even in manual mode the lens is still wide open when framing/metering etc. So perhaps we are just talking about different mechanisms but in my case the problem was there with both...
@@Invincibleagent We may be talking about related but different failure mode. If the issue is isolated to the auto aperture control (aperture squeak), then it should behave as I describe. But in manual, it relies on the bottom lever being pushed all the way of couse... And I have seen one Canon A-1 with that lever not "latching closed" during the exposure. So it is entirely possible that something mechanically wrong at the bottom of the camera would make partial aperture happen in manual mode. In all cases, a good professional CLA should deal with all of this nonsense!
Pretty much every vintage film camera is a ticking time bomb. As you alluded to you just don't know the camera's history if you purchased it second hand. The next time you shoot that camera could be its last. I have a Yashica T4 and whilst it shoots faultlessly I'm aware that the next time I use it it could be a victim of sudden death lol. I mean its not like anybody is servicing these cameras even if I was prepared to do that regularly. So in my mind I'm thinking do I sell it and get some decent money for it now before it ends up being a door stop and let somebody else take the hit after they have shot a few rolls through it 🤔 Do I keep it and continue to enjoy the experience in the knowledge that it might last many more years or could be dead in a couple of months. 😊
Appreciate the detailed breakdown! I have a quick question: My OKX wallet holds some USDT, and I have the seed phrase. (alarm fetch churn bridge exercise tape speak race clerk couch crater letter). How can I transfer them to Binance?
In your previous video on this subject I couldn't see where the oil would be applied to fix the mirror squeak. Does it go on the meshing surface of the gears, or on one or more of the gear shafts? Is there a specific type of oil that must be used? I've heard gun oil, clock oil, sewing machine oil. I have a synthetic lubricant called SuperLube. Could that be used or should I avoid it?
For the aperture problem - my AE-1 had it until I had it serviced, after which it was fine. One important thing to note is that your photos may only be overexposed with certain lenses, depending on their maximum aperture and the one you have set it to. When I was looking at my 28mm f/2.8 lens, it was stopping down to what it should have done because the aperture blades didn't have to travel as far when stopping down to f/16 or whatever. With my 50mm f/1.4 lens, however, it was only getting to around f/8 when it was set to f/16, because the initial wide open position means the blades have to travel further. This will depend on focal length as well. As negative film is very lenient with overexposure, you could well not really notice this in your photos, even if they are technically over-exposed. And that would only really be if you were going for a smaller aperture anyway. I found that setting it to f/8 or wider didn't show the problem.
from my experience working on the mechanism of a number of cameras of that era, though not this one specifically, is that the mirror and shutter are chained together in their actuation. pressing the shutter release button will first let the mirror loose for a spring to pull it up and once it's up in position, a small lever on the side of the mirror box hits a trigger for the shutter to fire, and similarly the mirror won't go down until the shutter "tells" the mirror that it's finished. so my assumption is that cameras with slow mirrors are not gonna have issues of partial exposure because the shutter won't be open until the mirror actually reaches the extent of its travel
I have a Canon AE1-Program...had a wicked Canon cough. I took off the baseplate and used some "MONKEY-LUBE" (which is a bearing and firearms lubricant) and placed a few drops into a very specific section of the camera. After a few cycles, the camera is quiet and seems to function delightfully. I'm waiting for my second roll of film to be returned to me to test. My first roll of this camera came out blank so I don't know if I messed up or the camera did...but I'm SO excited to see if I can get this puppy to puppy. Thanks for the video. It's good to know that I'm not the only one struggling with this. ;)
The B&W snap with camera supplies signage a rarity.
I have seen people use squeaky cameras like this for a long while... It's better for it to be fixed though.
The aperture squeal (sometimes randomly) prevent the blades to not close down when the aperture is automatically controlled (shutter speed priority, and in the case of the A-1, aperture priority too, as it's controlled by the body and not the ring ont the lens). If you shoot manual, it will always close the blades at the right value I am pretty sure.
I had an AE-1 program that was doing the aperture not closing enough thing quite reliably. I did end up very carefully move the magnet out of the way and reach the gears from the bottom and put a very small amount of oil there myself and it actually worked.
For the "will the wheels come off" thrill, I recommend using soviet camera equipment, For two cameras of the same model, your result is on a spectrum going from "This is a very nice surprise. It's like a cheap leica with nice stolen Zeiss glass" to "This miserable pile of trash was assembled by Dmitriyovich on a Thursday when he had not drunk enough Vodka yet to do his job properly and so it's all fucked up"
The aperture issue is still there in manual mode, because the lens is still wide open before you click the shutter button, after which it stops down to your set value (unless you have pushed the DoF preview).
@ no it is not. It’s a separate mechanism in manual mode. The lens get stopped down by the lever at the bottom of the mount. (The one also connected to the stopped down metering button (it is not a dof preview strictly speaking)).
In manual mode the aperture control lever does nothing on most canon A series (maybe with the exception of the AV-1).
In pre-set aperture mode on the FD lens this lever becomes how the lens signal to a body what is the current aperture. If you use a FTb camera for example this is that moves the “racket” in the match needle meter display.
This is why there’s a partial inter-compatibility between the canon FD and FL mounts too.
@@Ybalrid Well I can say from direct experience that it absolutely did have the aperture problem when manually controlling the aperture on my AE-1. It was literally how I could easily demonstrate it to my repair guy. I was directly setting it to f/16 or f/22 and it was only getting to about f/8.
Are you sure about that explanation? Either way there is a mechanism that is stopping the lens down when you fire the shutter in manual mode, because even in manual mode the lens is still wide open when framing/metering etc. So perhaps we are just talking about different mechanisms but in my case the problem was there with both...
@@Invincibleagent We may be talking about related but different failure mode.
If the issue is isolated to the auto aperture control (aperture squeak), then it should behave as I describe. But in manual, it relies on the bottom lever being pushed all the way of couse... And I have seen one Canon A-1 with that lever not "latching closed" during the exposure.
So it is entirely possible that something mechanically wrong at the bottom of the camera would make partial aperture happen in manual mode.
In all cases, a good professional CLA should deal with all of this nonsense!
Pretty much every vintage film camera is a ticking time bomb. As you alluded to you just don't know the camera's history if you purchased it second hand. The next time you shoot that camera could be its last. I have a Yashica T4 and whilst it shoots faultlessly I'm aware that the next time I use it it could be a victim of sudden death lol. I mean its not like anybody is servicing these cameras even if I was prepared to do that regularly. So in my mind I'm thinking do I sell it and get some decent money for it now before it ends up being a door stop and let somebody else take the hit after they have shot a few rolls through it 🤔 Do I keep it and continue to enjoy the experience in the knowledge that it might last many more years or could be dead in a couple of months. 😊
Appreciate the detailed breakdown! I have a quick question: My OKX wallet holds some USDT, and I have the seed phrase. (alarm fetch churn bridge exercise tape speak race clerk couch crater letter). How can I transfer them to Binance?
In your previous video on this subject I couldn't see where the oil would be applied to fix the mirror squeak. Does it go on the meshing surface of the gears, or on one or more of the gear shafts? Is there a specific type of oil that must be used? I've heard gun oil, clock oil, sewing machine oil. I have a synthetic lubricant called SuperLube. Could that be used or should I avoid it?
Canon squel/squeak may not be recognized by many new users of film cameras.