Any Camera Repair Guru's?

[CaverScott]

I have a Canon AE-1 (SLR) circa 1981 (Original owner). My 16 year old boy wants desperately to use it; however, whenever I advance the film frame, the camera automatically takes a photo. Any suggestions how to resolve this without taking to a camera shop?

[Mike Cato]

Take it to someone who used to work at a camera shop.

Actually, and interestingly enough Scott, I have the same model camera purchased sometime in the early '80s that also had a bug. Mine turned out to be barely corroded battery contacts although I never noticed any corrosion on a battery.

In your case, it sounds like something you can't (or don't want to try to) get to is the problem. Probably some expertise is required.

[ScottM]

This is from a friend of mine that runs a Camera shop in California.

No, the camera needs to be serviced. There is a part in the camera that needs to be replaced

I think it may run around $95.00. I've not had one apart, but we send ours out to a repair center in Santa Barbara.

[Rick Brinkman]

This is from a friend of mine that runs a Camera shop in California.

No, the camera needs to be serviced. There is a part in the camera that needs to be replaced

I think it may run around $95.00. I've not had one apart, but we send ours out to a repair center in Santa Barbara.

If the parts and labor are going to run $100 or more, you should think about going to Ebay and replacing the camera.

[Blackie]

Many years ago this guy repaired a shutter problem in my K1000.
http://www.camerarx.com/frames/index2.html
I had the problem repaired by an authorized Pentax repair center.
Yeah, their repair only lasted a year and this guy repaired it for like a third of what the Pentax folks charged. And his repair lasted.
He only works on mechanical cameras.

[CaverScott]

I had forgotten about this post. A few days after I posted this, my son went onto a Camera junkie's discussion board (like this one) and asked around. One person gave him his home phone number to call him. They talked about it and the internet repairer told him to open it up and clean the magnets , reassemble it carefully, and see what develops (Sorry, could not resist the pun). Anyway, that solved the problem and Ryan has shot at least five rolls of film with some impressive results.