TIL a 1970s Pentax Spotmatic taught me why my shutter speeds were off

I was at a camera swap meet in Denver last month and an old repair guy told me the original Spotmatic used a cloth shutter that gets stiff with age. He said at 1/500th second it might actually fire closer to 1/200th. Checked my own Spotmatic with a shutter tester and he was dead on. Anyone else find old cameras have wildly inaccurate speeds that cleaning the mechanism can fix?

2 comments

2 Comments

logan6321mo ago

Yeah cleaning the slow speed mechanism fixed mine right up.

emmam671mo agoProlific Poster

Three cleaning attempts later and I still can't find my missing sock in there.