A balanced, three course meal of
photography, tech and repair
Usually bad attempts at fixing broken things
In 1963 Canon introduced a rather unusual “sports action” camera called the Dial 35. The dial in the name doesn’t refer to the large knob on the side, rather the plastic ring surrounding the lens which adjusts the amount of light hitting the light sensor. This apparently resembled the popular rotary dial telephone design of … Read more
I recently bought a half frame wonder in the form of the Canon Demi EE-17 and after putting a roll of film through it I noticed that the frame counter wasn’t resetting when the film door was opened. Normally, a camera will go back to the “S” on the frame counter either when the door … Read more
Some time in July I searched eBay for Canon DSLR’s and sorted by cheapest first. The top result was a Canon 30D for all of £30. This didn’t seem to make sense, for that money either the seller didn’t really know what they had or it was broken. The listing was indeed “for parts or … Read more
The Canon T series of cameras are something of a no mans land in the history of SLR cameras. They came at a time when all of the major manufacturers were transitioning away from manual focus to auto focus whilst simultaneously trying to stuff as many electronics as possible inside. The late 1970’s to early … Read more
Honestly, I don’t mean to do it. I certainly didn’t set out on this particular journey with the intention of doing it. Every time I tell myself that I have enough cameras, enough things to be using, reviewing or repairing, I find something new, completely by accident and it opens up yet another rabbit hole … Read more
Since setting up this site, I’ve been researching, investigating and trying to implement various methods of disaster recovery in case the inevitable happens and I suffer either a hardware or software failure. Despite this looming possibility, I still haven’t managed to find a set up which works for my particular set up, in the way … Read more
The Canon 300D/Digital Rebel (an awful name for a camera) was truly ground breaking when it was released in 2003 for around £800. For the first time a digital SLR with a well regarded sensor and image quality was available for a price that most “enthusiasts” would consider very enticing indeed. Canon simultaneously introduced a … Read more
By now I have learned that all the appliances I own seem to find some way of destroying themselves at some point, and when they do, it’s never just as simple as a straight in and out swap. Todays tale, you’ll be glad to know, does not include washing machines. A while back, I noticed … Read more
My favourite 35mm film camera, the Canon AE-1 Program was released in 1981 and my other go to film body, the EOS 55e was first released in 1995. This means my two main cameras are probably about 40 and 25 years old respectively. In technology terms, this makes them about as modern as a dolly … Read more