Quality, durability and reparability

[Doug]

It's said that electronic gear will generally either fail soon or last for a long time. With computers, for instance, I've found it's the mechanical bits that wear out over time... keyboards, mice, floppy/CD/hard-drives.

Some people avoid the Minolta CLE, nervous about "unrepairable" electronic components. And some CLEs have failed, apparently. I have two, one since new in 1984. Every ten years or so its meter starts acting oddly, and it's a mechanical part that needs servicing! Dirt accumulates on the switch contacts under the shutter speed dial. My local repair guy, now retired, told me that the circuitry pre-dates integrated circuits, so individual electronic components can be changed if they fail... the main trick is determining which part is at fault. But none of them seem inclined to fail...

I should look up the retired repair tech and seek instruction from him on how to disassemble and clean the shutter speed dial, as the CLE is a favorite camera I plan to keep using for a long time.

 

[amateriat]

I love the ticking of my - well, not so old yet - Nomos Tangente wrist watch and shaving with my Merkur Futur shaver.

Ok Roger, you may not comprehend the shaving part, though... 😀

Cheers,
Uwe

Oh, heavens, I do: not only do I have that selfsame Merkur Futur, but a Merkur Vision besides (needs to go back to the factory after an iadvertent flight against the bathroom tile, which did moredamage to the tile than the razor). But wetshaving is yet another strange obsession for another forum.

My 2 M2 Leicas and 2 vintage BMW motorcycles seem to be designed so as to be durable and easily repairable/rebuildable. Fewer and fewer products built today have those attributes. It seems that most consumers have a short term outlook and want to buy something as cheaply as possible, so that's how most products are built.

Somewhere around here, I have a brochure for the then-new New Canon F-1 (the one with the "hybrid" electronic/mechanical shutter). In this brochure, Canon details part of the production process for the camera. Quite a bit of the procedure at the time was highly automated, but with crazy-extreme preceision (remember, this was in the wake of the high-tech production techniques that brought forth the Canon A series cameras from the mid-70s onward). I dare anyone to tell me the New Canon F-1 wasn't in just about every aspect superior to the camera it replaced.

This gets back to my favorite mantra: it's not what you do, but how you do it. Both my Hexar RFs are end-products of this philosophy. "Classic" (well, mostly so) on the outside, technologically well-endowed inside, without the need to flaunt it the way too many cameras do now. Yet, not built just for the moment (at least by intent). Upper-end digital cameras are built to a reasonably high standard, but most of them leave me cold for assorted reasons. And, Bill, as usual, brings up a thorny, uncomfortable, but important question: nearly all these upper-end cameras might well outlast their inherent desirability, given the nature of digital technology. What then?

I'm hardly advocating rapid obsolescence, and I rather doubt Bill is, either. But there's the question of things that should last versus those things where longevity is something of an empty virtue (though not entirely: there have been several artists pointedly utilizing "obsolete" digital camera technology to interesting visual ends).

I haven't bought a new camera in seven years. Then too, I haven't bought a new bicycle in thirteen years. And, to a certain point, that's how it should be. I'm pretty happy with what I have. Then again, I made my choices rather neurotically. 😉


- Barrett

 

[Clark.EE]

Hand built by machine.

Hand built by machine.

Who builds the machines that make the components that are assembled by hand?

 

[skeletron]

I think I probably put a much lower value on quality, durability, and ease of repair than the average poster on this forum. I actually prefer a certain level of transience in my possessions. The longer you have an item around, the more memories are associated with it, the more emotionally precious it becomes. Forming an emotional attachment to an inanimate object is, to me, worse than having to replace something because it ceases to function or was stolen.

I don't go out of my way to avoid well-made objects, but I don't place any value on the potential of owning something for more than 3, 4, or 5 years (home and transportation being exceptions, but of convenience more than anything).

 

[Rui Morais de Sousa]

Quality, durability and reparability

Hi Roger,
I know this thread is already a little old, but I only saw it last night, and I wish to add my thoughts on it.
First, I think that I understand very well your point of view. It might be that we are a similar type of people...
To love and apprecciate some old stuff has not necessarly to do with nostalgia for it's sake: when my daughter undergoes heart chirurgie (she already did it three times) I realy want her to have the most modern and efficient technology, when I look at a TV or PC screen I prefer modern, DVD has much better image quality than VHS, new computers are much better than old ones, etc., etc. But there are many, many things that were better done, and if not exectly better, they at least have a lot of character that might appeal to you (Russian cameras for ex.).
Mostly it has more to do with quality and soul than with nostalgia.
That's why I prefer my 53 year old M3 or my 50 year old M2 to my modern everything-doing 1 1/2 year old Canon D30. By far!!
My old Leitz, Zeiss, Schneider,Rodenstock, and even some AIS Nikkors, are way much better lenses than two of my modern Canon zooms (one of them beeing a serie L that costed a fortune, if I take the ratio price - quality in consideration. I'm not only talking bad: I like my 70-200 2.8 L and my 400 5.6 L).
Back to old "stuff": I also prefer a lot of old houses to a lot of modern ones (I had the chance of photographing works by really famous architects like Mies van der Rohe and Álvaro Siza, so I am not talking for just talking), I prefer to live in the old part of town than in the new one, I prefer my almost 60 year old hand-carved archtop jazz guitar to a lot of new ones, although there are some very good ones too, I prefer my old Tannoy Arden speakers to many new ones, I prefer my 12W Class A Audio Note tube amplifier, or my Quad from the 60's to a lot of stuff you can buy now (I also run modern CD players and DVD through them, but also my old Thorens record player). I know that there are a lot of good and some even very good things out there, but I just don't feel the need to buy them. My two older suns work professionaly with sound equipment, they are also amazed how good this old stuff sounds. And what about that warm sound of a Polytone amplifier paired with a nice archtop? Why do you think that Fender and Gibson try to "copy" their vintage guitars and amplifiers? And why musicians love them? Or an old piano, cello, violin?
Yes, I prefer a new, energy saving, washing machine! Why? I don't care about it, I don't have passion for washing clothes, I prefer efficiens to character on this subject. It doesn't touch my heart and soul. I just don't care about washing machines, I just use them!
If I would win the lottery and would wish to buy a boat, you can bet that I would choose a nice wood made sail boat, and never a fibre glass (or whatever) modern looking one, no matter how potent the motor, no matter how confortable the bed, no matter how impressive the luxus.
If nothing more, it's just a matter of taste. That's also why I would prefer an old british sports car to many new ones. Who denies that an old Jaguar E is not much nicer than most modern roadsters? You don't agree? I am glad to see that we all don't love and think the same. It's good to know that we are not all equal. What a bothering place the world would be...
And Rogers, like you I drive a Land Rover, although of newer age (Nov. 2000). When I am off road, I am surely glad that it is old fashioned and doesn't have all that plastic crap that "embelishes" the new vehicles. I didn't buy it to look nice or have confort. I bought it to be ruged and utilitarian. And yes, I'd love to have an open Series Land Rover, or even a Lightweight, because of the fun.
Fun, passion, taste, soul, are not easy words to argue about...
Last end, it comes to the way each of us looks at the world.
Have a nice time,
Rui

 

[Roger Hicks]

Dear Rui,

Thanks for an excellent analysis, especially the bit about quality and soul. Yes, I've just bought a Miele dishwasher -- modern, energy saving, quiet, the best quality you can easily find -- but a dishwasher can't really have the 'soul' of a good camera or a Land Rover.

And:

Dear Skeletron,

I can't be assed to keep replacing things. Time goes fast enough as you get older, and 3 or 4 years pass as fast as one used to. I don't want to but a new camera every year (of subjective time).

Sure, they're just possessions, and they can be replaced. But why replace them if you don't have to?

Cheers,

Roger