Old timer told me to stop using canned air on shutters back in 2017

I was working on a Nikon FE2 and this guy who used to repair for a camera shop in Cleveland told me canned air leaves residue that gumms up the blades over time. He said switch to a rubber bulb blower and never look back. I brushed him off at first cause I thought he was being old fashioned. But 6 months later I had to redo a Pentax K1000 because the blades were sticking from the propellant gunk. Now I only use the bulb blower and a soft brush. Anyone else have a tip someone gave you that seemed dumb but turned out solid?

2 comments

2 Comments

black.mark25d ago

Man I learned that same lesson the hard way too, except mine involved a Canon AE-1 that started sounding like a maraca after a few months of canned air abuse. I felt like such a genius spraying that stuff into the shutter mechanism until everything got all sticky and slow. Now I'm that guy at estate sales who looks at people using compressed air and has to physically stop myself from giving unsolicited advice. The bulb blower and a tiny brush is honestly all you need unless you've got like a literal sandstorm inside your camera. My dumbest moment was probably trying to unstick some blades with WD-40 back in 2012, which is a whole other horror story I don't talk about much.

elizabeth_ramirez25d ago

Oh man, I gotta push back a little on the bulb blower being all you need. That's great for dust but if you've got actual stubborn debris or something sticky on the sensor, a bulb blower just moves it around. You really need a proper sensor cleaning kit with those little swabs and some solution. I learned that the hard way when I kept blowing crap around my mirrorless camera and ended up with streaks that showed up in every blue sky photo for months. The bulb blower is step one, not the whole solution.