Camera Club Newsletters

Dogs Love Cameras Too!

Some dogs love to "eat" cameras, especially when they are made of plastic!  The smell and taste must be irresistible!  That was the case with a customer's Collie dog that climbed up on a table to sample a taste of an Olympus Stylus Epic Zoom 80 camera.  It must have been good, because his sharp teeth were on their way towards "trashing" a beautiful point-and-shoot model before he was stopped.  Our shop had to replace the front and rear covers plus the lens door.  Total cost was $70.50.  The parts accounted for more than one-half of the final amount. 

Fall is a good time of year to inspect your photo equipment for problems incurred during summer heat and use.  Accidental spilling of wine, soft drinks, milk, ice cream, sauces, fine dust, salt air, extreme humidity, acidic rain, peanuts, super-small spiders, and tiny ants; the list seems endless!  Any sugary liquid that was dropped around the control buttons or levers can dry like glue and cause them to stop dead or become sluggish.  Digital models are particularly prone to this with their plethora of controls, delicate plastic buttons, and tiny levers.  The diaphragm control collars around the lens barrel seems to be a favorite target of sugary liquids.  It only takes one or two drops to cause a "lock-up." 

Fall is also the time to remove the lens so the dust can be blown or swept away from the rear lens element and the inside of the mirror housing.  It is best if you confine your effort to cleaning the mirror with water-free air.  A few specs of dirt on it will do no harm in a film camera, but can be a different story in a digital model. 

We must not forget that the so-called "clean air" we breathe is not really clean, that many electrically charged dust particles are floating around and looking for a place to land which could be your camera's interior when the lens is removed.  On a digital SLR these dust particles are attracted to the CCD plate and will show up on the slide or print.  Shutting off the camera's switches before removing the lens will help to reduce this problem.  Our shop charges $65.00 to carefully clean the CCD plate, the mirror and the interior of the mirror housing.