Stop Gear Cruelty :)

LeicaFoReVer

LeicaFoReVer

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I bought and sold many items. I am sometimes so surprised that how people dont know how to take care of their gears which they pay hundreds of bucks (sometimes thousands)...Cleaning marks, dust and everything going into the space on the barrel...

Lets educate people to stop gear cruelty 🙂

How do you take care of your gear. Do you regularly clean by yourself? Carry them always in pouches?

I time to time clean my lenses with a special chemical and a tissue after I blow the dust away on the lens as if you dont blow the dust first, microscopic dust can scratch your lens...

What else?
 
I took a dremel to a 50mm F1.2 Canon RF lens. Broke three cutting disks on it getting the rear module out of it. Someone had welded the thing and removed the front element, must have been used in a Lab.

I used the rear element and other parts from it together with a second parts lens to make one working lens.

Bad Example...
 
I bought this really expensive cloth from a Nikon shop when i went to Thailand and i always hold my camera in that cloth. Even when I'm taking pictures i hold that cloth and clean dust.
Greece is a messy country. Dust is everywhere.
 
The tales of horrors that I have seen. Unbelievable.

Optics Modules GLUED into place on wartime CZJ Sonnars in LTM and the collimation was OFF!
 
The only time I clean a lens is when I first get it, unless it's new of course. I then fit a filter on and never remove. You can clean most filters with any dry cloth and not damage them. Filters are cheap compaired to good lenses.
 
Cruelty on gear?
Do you have special slippers to wear them in your car only and driving in gloves? 🙂

LeicaFoReVer said:
I bought and sold many items. I am sometimes so surprised that how people dont know how to take care of their gears which they pay hundreds of bucks (sometimes thousands)...Cleaning marks, dust and everything going into the space on the barrel...

Lets educate people to stop gear cruelty 🙂

How do you take care of your gear. Do you regularly clean by yourself? Carry them always in pouches?

I time to time clean my lenses with a special chemical and a tissue after I blow the dust away on the lens as if you dont blow the dust first, microscopic dust can scratch your lens...

What else?
Click to expand...
 
I buy gear to use, not to sit on a shelf under glass. Therefore it gets dusty and occasionally dinged. So, when it gets back home it all gets dusted off and cleaned as needed. No glue is used on it or holes purposely drilled into it, my stuff is not pristine and looks, for lack of a better word, used.
 
Okay- I just can't help myself...

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Do head transplants count as cruel?
 
I went to school with a girl who was also a fine art/photo major. Her dad was a professional photographer in the small town they lived in an hour north of Fort Wayne and he had a LOT of really nice gear as well as a fully equipped studio. He wouldn't let my classmate use ANY of it. She used to complain all the time how unfair it was that her dad wouldn't let her use his gear and wouldn't buy her gear of her own when he let her brother use anything he wanted plus the old man bought expensive gear for her brother as well.

I discovered why one day when her and I were going together to eat lunch between classes. Laying on the floor of her cat, amid piles of old fast food wrappers and other crap, was her camera, a Nikon N90, with no case or bag and no lens cap. This was back when the N90 was a current model, she bought it new and it wasn't very old. It cost her $900 if I remember right (now you can get an N90 for$75!).
 
I take very good care of my gear. But things happen

I was leaving a room and picked my camera up and removed the lens cap. I threw the camera around my neck and then someone called to me from behind as I was halfway out the door. I turned around quite fast and the camera swung around my neck into the metal door post. Took about a 1mm x 1mm chip out of the lens. Nothing to stop it taking the same old shots, but damn did I feel like *** after doing it.
 
Neare said:
I take very good care of my gear. But things happen

I was leaving a room and picked my camera up and removed the lens cap. I threw the camera around my neck and then someone called to me from behind as I was halfway out the door. I turned around quite fast and the camera swung around my neck into the metal door post. Took about a 1mm x 1mm chip out of the lens. Nothing to stop it taking the same old shots, but damn did I feel like *** after doing it.
Click to expand...

Ouch! I have always taken care of my gear, but I use it too. It won't look pristine if you take it out and use it. But it can look well taken care of.

I keep a blower brush and lens tissue at hand to clean lenses (or the filters over them if so equiped) when needed. A paint brush helps keep other parts free of dust. I used to keep all my 35mm cameras in their cases, but have gotten away from that. Mostly because the cases haven't survived as well. Just age, not abuse/protecting the cameras so much. But there were times when they did. I try to use a blower when I change lenses, but naturally, can't always.

I also try to keep my cameras and lenses in soft padded cases. That works wonders for me. I often try to keep lenses in their cases, leather or bakelite. That helps.

Cameras are on shoulder straps. I am not a fan of wrist straps; just me. My hands aren't free then.
 
To me, taking care of your gear means taking it out to shoot.

A Leica should die shooting, not live in a glass cage.

Everyone is always impressed by this, so why shouldn't we aspire to the same?
 
Using equipment is a good thing. I've seen some photographers that purposely bang their stuff up to "look Pro". Then they wonder why it fails when they need it.

I have a Nikon S2 that was used for thirty years by a pro. It looks like the M4 shown, but many more dents. Still works, and the RF image is much better after opening the top and moving a Sync wire out of the optical path. That must have been due to one big bang. Works great, I have not added any dents to it because there is no place left on it for a new one.
 
People do goofy stuff to gear. My 35/1.8 Nikkor in LTM came with a leica bayonet adapter super-glued to the mounting threads. I had to remove the damn thing with a dremel tool, which left a shallow groove cut perpendicular to the threads. Lens works fine, is light tight, just a bit disfigured. Not noticeable when mounted on a camera, of course😀

I did not return the lens to eBay seller because I got it cheap ($900), with a nice condition and functioning M2 for a rear lens cap.
 
My F2 has been in continuous use since 1988 when I bought it used. When it gets wet in the rain, I wipe it with a washcloth I keep in my vest or a tee-shirt or napkin. Similarly my lenses. The oldest one I use the most is my 180 2.8, which I got new about twenty-five or thirty years ago, and it is treated in a similar fashion.
None of this stuff is Dresden China and does't need to be treated as such.
Common sense and a wipe now and then as necessary and it works just fine.
 
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