Camera Revival has the experience and the necessary tools and skills to bring your vintage lenses back into working condition. You can drop off your lenses, in order to clean the optics, clean the aperture mechanism, regrease the helicoids for a smooth focus and improve the overall aesthetic condition of the lens. This also includes a full revision and infinity focus adjustments.

With a wide variety of optical tools at our disposal such as vertical collimators, auto-collimators and other precision measurements devices, we can deliver tolerances according to factory standards or even better.

Does your lens have fungus? Camera Revival can provide a full antifungal treatment of your precious lens. The antifungal treatment includes a complete revision of the lens because it’s the only way to exterminate all fungus traces and stop further contamination. However, removing lens fungus is like playing the Russian roulette; in most cases the damage caused by fungus can only be observed once the fungus strings have been cleaned from the lens elements. As fungus grows, it liberates acids which can etch the glass surface and damage the coatings. Once the glass surface is etched, only light polishing and recoating is possible in order to restore your lens elements.

Another frequent issue with vintage lenses is that of lens separation. In most cases,  separation starts at the edges, having none or very limited visible impact on optical performance. However, as separation worsens with age, a loss in contrast and an increase in flaring becomes noticable. Minor separation might not be problematic. Severe lens separation, on the other hand, might affect your image quality by bringing the lens elements out of alignment which increases unwanted abberations. Recementing the affected elements is the only workable solution for resolving this issue. Camera Revival works closely together with an optical specialist who has decades of experience in recementing of separated doublets. This process requires very precise optical machinery in order to guarantee the correct allignment of your optical assembly. Furthermore, we can also offer polishing and recoating services for damaged lens elements.

What’s in a name? CLA stands for Clean, Lube and Adjust. It’s the industry standard terminology for servicing your camera and/or lens. However, the term CLA is subject to interpretation. At Camera Revival, we will tell you what we will do when we do a CLA. In some cases, it might mean we need to do a partial revision and/or disassembly of the device. The goal is to get your camera and/or lens into working condition. Because there is still a major difference between “working” and “working as it should be”. In many cases CLA means as little work as possible for as much money as possible. However, at Camera revival, we don’t think we do any justice to our name if we do a little oiling and greasing here and there and call it a day.

Let’s not forget that the majority of the vintage analogue cameras and/or lenses on the market haven’t seen a service for decades. These devices are mechanical engineering wonders and as everything mechanical, need a frequent service in order to guarantee the proper functioning. It not only improves the durability, but also reduces the wear of internal parts. Replacing parts is more costly than frequent maintenance! Besides, a frequently serviced camera will keep it’s market value.

Every camera and lens is different and every issue is usually also different. We can provide you with an estimate of the service or repair cost once we had the possibility to inspect the item.

We charge a standard 45 EUR fee for an inspection per item. After providing you with an estimate, this amount can be used as a credit for the total service or repair cost of that particular item. In most cases, a partial disassembly of your camera or lens is needed in order to pinpoint the issue. On average a camera body service or repair might cost around 270 EUR. Overhauls are more expensive, because they require a complete disassembly of your camera. Needless to say, in cases where more work is required or parts need to be produced/replaced, this price can increase. The average price for a lens service can vary between 90 and 290 EUR, depending on the type of work that needs to be done. An accurate estimate can be provided once the items have been inspected by us.