Gear Geek: O Noes!

It seems a trip to casualty Apollo Camera in Oakland is in order. I pulled my beloved Pentax MX from my camera bag this evening, wanting to get this interesting shot of a seagull at the Ferry Building, only to find that the shutter mechanism felt very loose, like a tooth about to come out. I was able to fire the shutter but when I got it home the shutter came off completely.

So the whole camera is in a plastic zip bag waiting until I can take it over to Apollo in the next couple of days.

I realize that, in the grand scheme of things, a broken camera shutter is not such a horrible thing, but if you know me, you know how much I love this camera. Max has been my workhorse, my go-to guy. Those redscale film shots I’ve posted recently? Those were run through Max. I was just 4 shots into a roll of the new Kodak Ektar 100 film (which has now been safely retrieved from the camera, though I accidentally re-wound the film into the canister so I need a retriever gizmo…).

Fingers crossed that the shutter can be repaired or replaced.