Nikon R8 Service

Mark Sperry · February 12, 2015

I keep getting turned down for R8 service. Du-All said they only offer very limited service, and Willard Engineering did not respond to my email. I'd just like to have a basic overhaul done, and it would be a nice bonus if I could get the meter to run on the AA batteries. It works great and has an accurate meter, but is noisy when running and probably hasn't been serviced in a very long time. Any leads on where I can get this done? Are these cameras harder to service than the popular Canon models?

Andries Molenaar · February 12, 2015

Willard Engineering is hardly an option considering earlier discussions.

The trouble with these cameras is that opening them too easily wrecks the leatherettes. So after repair it will not look as pristine as it was :( Which can lead to unhappy customers. Parts are a problem too and some problems aren't so easily resolved. Some mechanics are lodged deep inside. Some of these R8/R10 run smoothly at 40 years old. Others have a sqeaky grinding noise. Lubing the cogs should help. Sometimes there is play in the needle-bearing.

Maybe they feel confident: http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Ffilm.club.ne.jp&langpair=ja|en&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools

Email in english is OK but response is slow at times.

There was an anonymous R10 repair guy on youtube. Maybe you can locate that one.

Mark Sperry · February 17, 2015

Thats a bummer. I love the camera. Hopefully I'll be able to find someone.

Matt Stevens · March 13, 2015

No one is left. No one. Willard Engineering has a truck full of cameras he has never fixed and will not return to the rightful owners. Du-All does little Super8 repair now and outside of them...

Nobody. That is why I am getting out of Super8. I am going to put my repaired and serviced Canon 1014 XL-S up for sale this weekend. Thank God I was able to push Willard to finish the job. it was like going to war. I think i might be the lone survivor when it comes to Willard.

Will Montgomery · March 16, 2015

Just buy another one. In fact, buy a few so you have backups. I have about 6 Canon 310xl's so I can hand them out to people to shoot at events or have the kids shoot if we're on vacation. I have 3 Beaulieu 4008's too. Never know when one is going to fail so just keep a few around. They are so cheap at garage sales and eBay you're better off buying another one then trying to service them. (except maybe the Beaulieu's where Bjorn can make them better than new).

Mark Lewis · March 31, 2015

Mark, if you would like to have the your R8 serviced contact Bernie at super16inc.com. As of the email I got this morning, they CLA these cameras and provide some other services as well.

I'd have to think Will's input would have to carry some weight here. I bought my R8 in 1995 in pristine condition, and it appeared to have been sitting on someone's shelf for many years prior to that, as the accessories were still in their factory wrappings. After about a half dozen cartridges it sat in my camera cabinet until recently. It worked without a hitch back then except that the power zoom began making loud, rough noises very soon after It came my way, which seems to be a common problem with these cameras(lubrication issues?). Hence the CLA inquiry. I'm still on the fence as to whether I'll just use this camera until it's inoperable, as it seems examples do turn up for sale now and then for less than what it would cost for a CLA. Plus, the lens on the R8 is less than a stellar performer when stopped down for low light. Kinda fuzzy. With the aperture at a mid level setting, however, I produced some very nice footage back then with some Plus-X and a yellow filter to correct any possible astigmatism. It was a sunny with clouds day and it was hard to believe Super8 could look much better, Kodachrome notwithstanding.

Mark Dunn · March 31, 2015

What? A yellow filter won't correct astigmatism. What do you mean?

Mark Lewis · March 31, 2015

I stand corrected here, I used an orange filter. Regardless, either color, or any other for that matter, may not correct astigmatism. Short of checking, I am sure your right about this. This was 20 years ago, when my technical knowledge was somewhat less than it is now. And considerably less now than many of the members here, I' m sure. At any rate, as I recall, I was advised that an orange filter, with certain lenses, and at specific aperture settings, would improve astigmatic qualities while using B&W negative film. I should say that this advise was directed toward the use of 35mm SLR photography. As a lark, I applied this to the R8 as described in my first post.

Was I completely misinformed about this? I tried a with/without filter comparison with an SLR before my venture into super8 and did see a difference in image quality with the respective negatives.