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Was reading an old repair manual from a camera shop in Osaka and saw a note about shutter tension
It said the factory spec for the curtain tension on a certain 1970s SLR was only 180 grams, which is way lighter than I ever set them. I always cranked them up thinking it helped with accuracy, but this little detail from a manual I found online made me question my whole approach. Has anyone else come across a factory spec that really surprised them?
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marybutler14d agoMost Upvoted
Ever wonder how many of those old factory specs got lost over the years? Like, some tech in 1975 knew the exact right tension, but that knowledge just vanished when the shop closed. Now we're all just guessing and probably stressing the parts. Makes you trust the original paper more than any modern forum tip.
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Oh man, that reminds me of my buddy who was obsessed with his old motorcycle. He swore the valves needed to be set way tighter than the manual said, thought it gave him more power. He ran it like that for years until a real mechanic took one look and just laughed, said he was lucky it didn't blow up. He had the exact same face when he found out, like his whole world was a lie lol. Makes you wonder how many other things we're just overdoing for no good reason.
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the_willow25d ago
That "whole world was a lie" feeling is so real. It makes me question all the little "performance hacks" people swear by. How many of those are just placebo and actually causing hidden wear?
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But what if that old spec was just a minimum safe number? Maybe they cranked them up at the factory for the real world and never wrote it down.
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