That time my shutter curtain got stuck and I learned a lesson about storage

I had an old Pentax Spotmatic sitting on my shelf for about 8 months. Pulled it out last Tuesday to show a friend and the shutter curtain just... froze halfway open. Turns out the foam seals had turned into sticky goo from humidity. I had to spend 3 hours cleaning that mess with isopropyl alcohol and q-tips. Has anyone else had shutter curtains seize up from sitting too long in a damp closet?

2 comments

2 Comments

ryand263d ago

You said "sticky goo from humidity" and that's the real nightmare right there. That foam turns into something that feels like a melted candy bar mixed with superglue once moisture gets involved. I've found that storing cameras with silica gel packs in a sealed plastic bin helps a lot if you don't have a climate controlled space.

drew8053d ago

Yeah I used to think the whole silica gel thing was overkill (like, how much difference could those little packets really make?). But after pulling out a camera I'd stored in my garage for one summer, I'm a total convert now. The foam was absolutely wrecked, but the silica gel in my sealed bin kept the electronics and lenses completely dry while everything else in that box was basically a science experiment. Never again will I skip that step.