[vladimiroltean]

Hey, does anyone know who are the Pentax specialists in Europe? I contacted Pål Vangsoy from Oslo, and although he was very kind, he doesn't take service from outside Norway because it's not in the EU, so the paperwork and customs taxes would drive the repair costs too high.

[Baard-Einar]

Hey, does anyone know who are the Pentax specialists in Europe? I contacted Pål Vangsoy from Oslo, and although he was very kind, he doesn't take service from outside Norway because it's not in the EU, so the paperwork and customs taxes would drive the repair costs too high.

I am in Norway, shipping via might help you since I can do the paper work that Pål doesn't want to do. I use him for a lot of repairs.

Otherwise I am not really sure. Which camera and what fault are you trying to get fixed?

You have this company in the UK: https://harrowtechnical.co.uk/, But the UK has left EU and that drives up the costs.

[vladimiroltean]

I am in Norway, shipping via might help you since I can do the paper work that Pål doesn't want to do. I use him for a lot of repairs.

Otherwise I am not really sure. Which camera and what fault are you trying to get fixed?

You have this company in the UK: https://harrowtechnical.co.uk/, But the UK has left EU and that drives up the costs.

Thanks for the offer, I've sent you a PM.
I knew about the existence of Harrow Technical, but I also read on the first page of this thread that the shop closed and I wasn't sure what this means:
Pentax Film SLR Repair Resources - PentaxForums.com
Costs are a little bit on the high side when adding international shipping and customs, though. But if no better alternatives appear within sight, who knows...

[womble]

Thanks for the offer, I've sent you a PM.
I knew about the existence of Harrow Technical, but I also read on the first page of this thread that the shop closed and I wasn't sure what this means:
Pentax Film SLR Repair Resources - PentaxForums.com
Costs are a little bit on the high side when adding international shipping and customs, though. But if no better alternatives appear within sight, who knows...

Robin (Harrow Technical) retired, but then started doing some repairs "on the side" so it is worth dropping him a line. I know other technicians in the UK, but don't have names within the EU. There must be some, somewhere!

K.

~wanders off muttering about b****y Brexit...~

[vladimiroltean]

Robin (Harrow Technical) retired, but then started doing some repairs "on the side" so it is worth dropping him a line. I know other technicians in the UK, but don't have names within the EU. There must be some, somewhere!

K.

~wanders off muttering about b****y Brexit...~

Hi Kris, to be honest, this isn't so much about fixing one urgent problem, as it is about finding a reliable technician that is also accessible. Shipping to UK or to Norway for a one-off issue might be okay, but it gets really old really quick. This is also the reason why I found it appropriate to revive Steve's thread rather than open another one centered around my specific problems.


I have heard some names that allegedly have done good work on Pentax cameras and lots of others. One such example is Igor Silva of Oficina Analógica (Portugal). I must clarify that I have no direct experience with him, so I don't want to comment one way or another, please treat this for what it is - a pointer, not a recommendation. I would certainly like to see some customer feedback from forum users, though - difficulty of repair, quality of work, attention to detail, communication skills, time, etc.



Regarding "there must be some, somewhere": it's very important to know what level of quality to expect. There is a difference between "technician that accepts to work on Pentax cameras" and "technician that knows the ins and outs of Pentax cameras". For a high difficulty repair, I'd certainly not give my camera to someone who opens up that model for the first time, and stares at it like Alice in Wonderland.

[womble]

Hi Kris, to be honest, this isn't so much about fixing one urgent problem, as it is about finding a reliable technician that is also accessible. Shipping to UK or to Norway for a one-off issue might be okay, but it gets really old really quick. This is also the reason why I found it appropriate to revive Steve's thread rather than open another one centered around my specific problems.


I have heard some names that allegedly have done good work on Pentax cameras and lots of others. One such example is Igor Silva of Oficina Analógica (Portugal). I must clarify that I have no direct experience with him, so I don't want to comment one way or another, please treat this for what it is - a pointer, not a recommendation. I would certainly like to see some customer feedback from forum users, though - difficulty of repair, quality of work, attention to detail, communication skills, time, etc.



Regarding "there must be some, somewhere": it's very important to know what level of quality to expect. There is a difference between "technician that accepts to work on Pentax cameras" and "technician that knows the ins and outs of Pentax cameras". For a high difficulty repair, I'd certainly not give my camera to someone who opens up that model for the first time, and stares at it like Alice in Wonderland.

I know exactly what you mean. Robin was handy for me (only about 15 miles away) and because I went to States regularly to visit the in-laws and friends, Eric wasn't too bad either. Covid has done for regular trips to the US, and Brexit has done for finding someone in the EU now Robin is retired. Camera Rescue seems a good set-up, but they're in Finland... The revival in film photography is not going to survive unless we can get cameras serviced and repaired.

[Baard-Einar]

The revival in film photography is not going to survive unless we can get cameras serviced and repaired.

That is very true, Kris. I have used Eric a lot when buying cameras from the US. Easy to have it shipped via him on the way to Europe. Eric is over 80 if I am not mistaken.

Then the last years I have used Pål here in Norway, but he is reluctant to send overseas, as the paperwork is large, and he runs this as a business. Doing both film repairs but also guarantee repairs for Pentax on digital bodies and lenses. Pål is considering retiring this summer so I am in a bit of a hurry to get my last film bodies fixed. He has a lot to do. Young people are beginning to enjoy using film and film bodies “fly” off the online sales channels. One professional photographer is buying attic finds, gets them fixed by Pål, for then to sell. He does this for the love of film photography, not for a profit.

I learned recently about a repair option in the Netherlands, but he has stopped repairing, he is 75. He was also a trained Pentax technician. He does have a lot of spare parts that he is selling via ebay.

[womble]

Camera Rescue is running repair and servicing courses, so there are some new people coming along but they might all end up in Finland!

[wkraus]

Regarding "there must be some, somewhere": it's very important to know what level of quality to expect. There is a difference between "technician that accepts to work on Pentax cameras" and "technician that knows the ins and outs of Pentax cameras". For a high difficulty repair, I'd certainly not give my camera to someone who opens up that model for the first time, and stares at it like Alice in Wonderland.

In reply to your post in the MX-related thread, I x-post my experience with Kamerazeit in Lübeck, Germany. They are the officially recommended service provider for analog Pentax cameras in Germany. I assume this means they are, in your words, "technician[s] that knows the ins and outs of Pentax cameras", with the downside that they will refuse to improvise where original spare parts would be needed but are no longer available (as you mentioned over in the other thread).

I sent three bodies there: an LX that needed a general CLA and replacing of deteriorating mirror stopping foam (or whatever that is called in English); an MX (my son’s) with the top cap deformed around the finder eyepiece due to a fall, also in need of CLA and replacing deteriorating foams; and a K2 also needing a CLA and replacing deteriorating foams. In the case of the K2, the ISO wheel around the lens mount is still a little difficult to adjust (a well-known issue with that model), but apart from that everything turned out very satisfactorily. If you speak German it is best to discuss with Dirk Lorenzen, the owner and (chief?) technician what you need and he will take his time to explain what can be done and what cannot. For instance, he explained to me that a dusty finder screen with the K2 can hardly be cleaned because it would require removing the prism which is a lot of work, and he would expect the flexible printed board above the prism to break if it is removed. So he wouldn’t touch it. I also found that the price was very fair. But none of what I wanted was difficult repair work.

[Givizub]

[deleted]

[vladimiroltean]

I'm happy to report that I have successfully used the services of Oficina Analogica from Portugal. This workshop has a Facebook page and Youtube channel and belongs to Igor Silva. He has an email address listed but he checks that rarely, so he is much more responsive when contacted over Facebook, for good or bad.

I had a Pentax KM with a film advance mechanism that was overlapping frames and which later jammed completely - wouldn't advance, wouldn't fire. Several rookie repair attempts made the whole affair a lot worse. Some screw heads broke, leaving the screw threads inside the camera body. The camera sat disassembled on a shelf for a number of years, with parts spread here and there, some of which were lost.
I've sent him this KM along with a junk Chinese-made K1000 that was beyond reasonable repair (prism desilvering, broken mirror, sluggish slow speed escapement, missing battery cap, overall rough condition) and with a film canister full of parts from the KM (including some springs of unknown provenance that fell from the KM).
He replaced the film advance mechanism of the KM with the one from the K1000, along with some other parts that were showing signs of wear and tear, or were outright missing. He also replaced the light seals and foam between the pentaprism and mirror box, while also making the focusing screen clean as a whistle.
He couldn't/didn't want/didn't have the time to remove the broken screws. As a result, the "shutter cocked" orange indicator is the only thing that wasn't repaired - the old one simply broke in the camera chassis and the stud is still inside there. He considered just transplanting everything onto the K1000 chassis, but the top and bottom screw locations were different.
As a result, a camera which I would never have thought would ever see the light of day again is now ready to use, and quite smooth in operation. Nothing is worse than it was when I gave the camera to him, and quite a lot is better.

The entire operation cost EUR 55 excluding shipping costs.

[vladimiroltean]

In downtown Bucharest is the workshop of a reputable local camera repair technician named Gabriel Cringloska. His official web page is at Professional Service Srl ? Reparatii si Reconditionari Camere Foto, and while it doesn't present a portfolio or instill a lot of confidence, at least it contains the basic contact information. Recently, after a casual talk, I learned that he also accepts mail-in cameras, which is the reason why I'm mentioning this here.

In parallel with the KM that I sent to Igor Silva (described right above), I gave Gabriel Cringloska an Asahi Pentax K1000 (Hong Kong made). I had purchased this camera for cheap in "as-is" condition, and while it was cosmetically nice, it had a mirror that sometimes refused to return, issue which could be observed regardless of shutter speed. So I'd never used this camera. Attached to that K1000 was a lens whose aperture blades were stuck wide open when I got it. I opened up that lens and the blades were stuck because they were *rusted* - just to give you an idea of the storage conditions of the thing. First I sent this K1000 for a CLA to a local nonprofessional/hobbyist whom I met on the "Learn Camera Repair" Facebook group. This person changed the light seals (in itself a decent job) and cleaned some things here and there, and the "mirror up" problem was gone. But now, after finally being able to at least complete the shutter cycle more than several times in a row, I noticed that there was shutter capping on more than half the width of the frame at 1/500 and 1/1000. I presented this finding to the hobbyist to which I had sent my camera, and he said "oh, I didn't even look at the shutter. But it's simple, you can even do it yourself, here's how to increase the tension on the curtains". Of course, the way I heard this was "run and don't look back!", and this is how I came to Gabriel Cringloska's services.


He was reluctant at first to work on a camera that was previously opened, arguing that it's more economically viable to get another one (little does he know about K1000 prices these days, lol). I managed to convince him that I'm determined to pay the asking price for a proper CLA of the camera, so he finally accepted to work on it. I'm bringing this up because, from discussions with some of his other customers, it seems to be a recurring theme for him to try to convince them that they don't want to pay the asking price (his version is that the customers underestimate the complexity involved, and nobody who offers to do a CLA for a measly price can do a thorough job).

Anyway, in my case the price was the equivalent of EUR 200, and it covered a strip down, cleaning and relubrication of the shutter rollers, springs and shafts, plus a cleaning of the space between the focusing screen and pentaprism and a replacement of that internal foam. The shutter now works perfectly acceptable (by that I just mean that there's no capping, and exposures are ok with negative film, I haven't done measurements with a shutter tester nor do I particularly care). For the viewfinder cleaning, actually he warned me that it takes a lot of his time to remove the old foam, clean the ensuing debris and replace it, and because by design these viewfinders aren't sealed (to allow some ventilation, for the condensation to dry), it's very easy for junk to get back in. I didn't listen, so he had to do that too. In fact, he had to reopen the pentaprism about 5 times, as small black specks kept finding their way back in, just from the air dislodged by the movement of the mirror. In the end he gave up on that and just gave it to me the way it was - with about 5 black specs. Now I wish I had listened.
In fact I noticed that the specs were mobile, so in my wisdom, when I got the camera back, I wondered if it would be possible to move them to the side by lightly tapping the camera against my palm. I did this a few times, and as I was blank-firing the shutter for further tests, at one point the camera completely froze. Mirror up, curtains open, aperture closed. Uh-oh!
I went back with the camera to his shop, and since it was under his 1-year warranty (this was the next day after I took it out from service), he debugged it for 3 more days trying to figure out what went wrong. Under the top cover everything was ok, had to remove the frame counter mechanism, all ok again, then eventually when the mirror box had to be removed, he noticed in a dim corner that there's a metal piece which should't be there. It was the shutter buttom plunger! But.... the camera had a shutter button plunger! Yes, but the one blocking the mechanisms was the original one. His hypothesis was that somebody took apart the camera before, the plunger fell from the top cover as it isn't held by anything, he didn't find it, then he replaced it with one from another camera. Hmm, I wonder who could have done that..
Anyway, after the second trip to his shop, the camera has been working fine (he also made a voluntary extra attempt to get rid of the specs in the viewfinder, which improved the situation somewhat), and I would recommend his services, I consider this to be a bit of a special situation. The price was proportional to the effort involved, and at least he didn't back out leaving me up in the air.

The turnaround time for the K1000 was about 3 weeks, considering that I told him it isn't urgent and he also had some backlog.


I also have an MX that's currently in his shop, but it just needs a minimal intervention to clean the inside of the viewfinder eyepiece, to fix an intermittent electrical contact made by the batteries due to corrosion, and to replace the frame counter with a spare part I had. The estimate for that was around EUR 20.


After the long story, it's probably worth mentioning that I'm not affiliated with him in any way, this is just the review of a satisfied customer. I looked over his shoulder on his computer where he keeps the database of repairs he's done, and among Pentax cameras there were all sorts, from Spotmatics, SV, K1000, MX, ME Super. I can't speak for the complexity of other repairs.

[wkraus]

In downtown Bucharest … of other repairs.

Great write up; thanks for sharing your experience!