Spent 2 hours cleaning a shutter before I realized it was the mirror

I was working on this old Canon FTb that had been sitting in a garage for like 20 years. The shutter looked FILTHY through the lens mount, all these specks and haze. So I carefully open it up, get my swabs and eclipse fluid, and spend a good 2 hours meticulously cleaning each curtain. Put it all back together, check through the back, and the spots are STILL there. That's when my buddy walked in, looked at the mirror, and said 'uh, did you check this?' The mirror was literally covered in some weird residue from cigarette smoke. I felt SO dumb. I even had to re-collimate the finder after because I bumped it during cleaning. Has anyone else wasted time cleaning the wrong part before?

2 comments

2 Comments

karent7510d agoMost Upvoted

2 hours on a mirror seems like a waste when the shutter's the real problem.

the_jennifer10d ago

My old Canon took forever to focus, so I switched to a smaller mirror and cut my time in half. Did you try that or just swap the shutter?