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Repair services for Salyut MF cameras in Europe ?
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 30, 2019 3:25 am    Post subject: Repair services for Salyut MF cameras in Europe ? Reply with quote

I recently talked with someone about a 2nd-hand photographic shop we had used both separately, and to my surprise he told me he had a Saluyt serviced there. To my surprise because I have been many times in that shop just to have a look, and bought lenses there but he takes only cash, so I had to think of this in advance, as these days most payment is by card or mobile app. The shop is in a small yard on New Basmannaya str. in Moscow, near metro Krasnye Vorota, and not far from Komsomol square, so very easy to drop in even if doing transfer in the city.
web address is http://kamepa.ru
Ok, so I knew that it is a repair shop too but I never asked him about shipments abroads because he doesn't take card. As I learned from the other guy that he takes in repair/service from abroad, with PayPal, it's now interesting. What thinking of it because I have a Salyut-S that jammed in a way I may not be able to fix, and a Zenith-80 ie. the much sought after 60's/70's export version of the Salyut, which got also a jam, different and this one probably easy to fix. Typically unless one does accidentally a bad manipulation, a serviced Salyut is totally reliable, so it may me better to spend the same money (or more) with that than in buying another body which history you don't know. Some light jams may be fixable by oneself, but despite the repair manual, it's a hell of time consuming to try....

There are many repairmen around in Russia but few with websites, so it's about asking locally at random when staying there, and shipment from abroad may be feel cumbersome to some, because the payment process (wire). There's a guy in the Urals or nearby if I recall well who manages a site also in english, so he is well known in the anglosphere. I forget his name and website but I found it to be a bit expensive last I had a look.

in Ukraine, the business doing also english is of course Araxfoto with Vartanayan, in Kiev. Their rates are ok. Hartblei no longer services soviet gear I think, they switched into a lens business with a german company.
In Dniepro there's a repairman who maintains http://fotoremontnik.ru and he can take in almost whatever mechanical. He has a youtube channel showing parts of video reports for customers, and he sells from Yandex storage some comprehensive video tutorials for disassemblies of some cameras. I bought one about the Kiev-60, I paid him with Webmoney but maybe he takes other systems. He's very serviciable and does help on Skype also.
I am very familiar with many places in Russia but have never been in Ukraine nor Belarus, yet I guess there are repairmen here and there working too from some small shop with just a basic web page.

I recall there was/is in Lodz, Poland a shop doing also most soviet gear included Salyut, but I can't recollect the name

In Tallinn, this guy http://fotoremont.ee does digital gears but still some mechanical, like the Zorki/Fed/Zenit but he told me he stopped doing the Salyut.

Ukraine and Russia are the most interesting for the price, but I guess Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary may still be reasonable. There's of course the language issue. I manage in main languages like russian, which works also in the Baltics , and with some effort, do help a bit for polish. So long it's only online written communication, machine translation is usuable if you struggle with part of the language. But if you don't already know basics it's too much prone to errors. But hungarian for instance, it's really something else just to get to the basics.....

Nearby me, in Sweden, there may be still some who can do Hasselblad 1000f, so could be able to do Saluyt, but even if they'd accept, rates would be very expensive....

so, wondering about other places members here may know.


PostPosted: Sat Apr 11, 2020 3:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I contacted Arax about mine but the price would have been £200. The camera with lens isn't worth that. And for the amount of times I would use it definitely not worth it. I sold my outfit for a profit and bought a Mamiya C33 and three lenses and Porro finder (which I don't use much)