camera repair in DC

For several years now, I've been trying to find a camera shop in DC to clean my old Canon Elan IIe 35mm film camera. After checking the lenses and the camera body myself and having multiple shops look at it, I couldn't determine why there was a small vertical line appearing at the top of every picture. Click on the photo below to enlarge it and find the hairline in the top center.


Photo by Jessica Hang
Taken with a 50mm/1.8 lens on a Canon Elan IIe

The local camera retailers were willing to take it for a thorough cleaning, but it would cost about $150 and take up to six weeks to clean it because they would have to ship it off to an expert to clean it. I tried calling Canon too, and their deal was similar: ship the camera to a service center to be checked and cleaned for a similar price and length of time. At that price, it's almost easier to get a new film camera body—they run about $300 these days.

One of the last local options I tried in DC was Strauss Photo Technical Service. It's not too far from Gallaudet University in Northeast. Not the prettiest of storefronts, but the people inside were great. Unlike the other camera retailers I tried in the past, they actually knew what they were talking about from the start of our conversation. I brought in a print that had the hairline in it along with my camera and showed the technician at the counter. He took my camera into the back room for about five minutes and came back saying that he found the tiny piece of hair (it was actually an artifact from one of the light seals) and got rid of it.

He reminded me of what I had forgotten since college physics. In the optics chapter, it describes how the image behind a lens is inverted top-to-bottom and left-to-right. When one sees something at the top of a print, it means that behind the lens, it's really appearing at the bottom of the frame. All the people who looked at the camera before were looking at the top of the frame instead of the bottom.

When I offered to pay, he said it was so simple that there would be no charge. The rest of the camera was still clean and in great working condition, so there wasn't any need for a full cleaning. I couldn't have left the shop any happier. After several years, my problem was fixed (subsequent rolls of film don't have the hairline in it) and I didn't have to shell out $150 to do it. There's no question that if I ever have a camera issue again, I'll be going back to Strauss, even if it will end up costing $150. I haven't found another shop in DC where the people are so qualified (it's hard to find people who do old camera repairs these days) and the service was good (camera retailers tend to be on the pretentious side at times).

So yeah, if you have an old camera that needs repair in DC, I whole-heartedly recommend Strauss.