Help! Olympus 35 LC shutter not working

[jgwong]

I was practicing focusing with my 35 LC and I did the following. I turned the camera pointing upwards and gently and slowly pressed the shutter button to hear the click. The aperture blades begun to move a bit, but when I fully depressed the button, nothing happened. As in, the aperture blades didn't open, the curtain didn't move, no photo was taken.

The advance lever is still cocked, pressing the shutter button does nothing. In desperation and without thinking, I moved a bit the self-timer lever. Of course it's stuck too, waiting for the shutter button to work correctly.

Please help me. Is it possible I can fix this? There are no camera service places in my city.

 

[jgwong]

To make things worse, I tried pressing the film release button at the bottom of the camera. It's stuck too.

Ok, deep breath. Not touching anything else.

Please help me, I'm desperate.

 

[nikon_sam]

It could be that there is some old grease getting into places it shouldn't be...I don't know how cold it is where you are but maybe that's whats causing all this to happen at once...allow the camera to warm up a bit to see if it will function...
I have several Olympus 35-S II cameras and on all of them there was old grease on the shutter blades causing them to work intermittently...and sometimes not at all
If you're daring enough you can probably fix this yourself...might take a service manual, some q-tips and a bit of Naphtha (lighter fluid)...
If it's anything like the 35-S II you should be able to get to the shutter by removing the front elements of the lens...also it might take several attempts to get all the old grease off the shutter blades...when you think you've got it all clean let the camera sit for a day then try the shutter again...there shouldn't be any hesitation and it should sound snappy...if not clean it again...

 

[jgwong]

Thanks for your answer, Sam. This happened at night, it's not very cold where I live. I'll wait until the sun comes out and leave the camera there to warm up.

I'm not willing to disassemble the camera. I searched for a service manual or anyone disassembling a 35 LC but no results where found.

 

[Jack Conrad]

You may have already tried this, but place the camera face down and jiggle the shutter release. Maybe even rap the shutter area with a plastic spoon or something to try to get the shutter blades to settle back onto their pins properly. It's a long shot.

 

[jgwong]

Hi Jack,

Yes, I tried that already. No results so far. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[ZeissFan]

It sounds to me like the shutter needs to be serviced. This is very common with cameras that have leaf shutters. In fact, nearly every camera equipped with a leaf shutter that I've encountered (more than 200) has need to have its shutter serviced.

Of the number that I've come across, fewer then five have functioned correctly out of the mailing box and continue to function correctly today.

 

[jgwong]

ZeissFan,

Looks like I'll have to take it to Lima (my capital city) to have it serviced there. Dargh. Also, with Christmas coming, travel prices skyrocket.

The reason this is important to me is because it's my late father's camera.