Preparing the Camera's for SpringE47

This all depends on the type of Camera digital or film.

In the case of digital cameras, a good cleaning, and making sure all of the batteries are charged up may be all you need to do. Some older digital cameras like my elderly 300D may need a sensor cleaning. Use a fully charged battery and put the camera into sensor cleaning mode, use a VERY soft, new artists brush to brush the crap off the sensor. The chance of scratching the sensor is very high, and sending a rare or expensive camera out for a professional cleaning and service, may be recommended. Li-Ion batteries have a limited life span, if you find batteries are not staying charged for very long, they may need to be replaced.

Film cameras need a good assessment, my Konica TC is 40 years old, the light seals are shot, the meter doesn’t work, and if it did it would need to be calibrated and converted to modern (non-mercury) batteries. Probably cost $500 to fix this camera that is worth about $100 now, it is officially retired.

The FC-1 from 1982 (making it 36 this year) is in much better condition, it still works fine, you need to clean the dust off, put fresh batteries in it (LR44’s which are still around), load in fresh film, and off you go. The advantage that film cameras have is that even a 40 year old camera can use the latest film. Although film and processing are both getting a little hard to find now. The best film for being around a long time is Black and White, the chemicals for processing are rather simple and can be readily obtained, you can even mix your own in many cases.

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In either case, you want to make sure that your lenses are clean and working fine, and that you check the function of all of your accessories, be careful of things that use batteries, that you haven’t left old batteries inside. This can be common in things that are not used often like flash units. If batteries were left in, and leaked you need to know the formula. Acid batteries need an alkaline solution to remove corrosion, baking soda is probably the most common. Alkaline batteries need an acid to remove the corrosion and vinegar is one of the most common.

This weeks image is some driftwood from a beech from last year.