Local repair

Bought some new bits for my camera yesterday.  Fiddling about changing lenses, there came a click and tinkle.  A strange plastic bit had fallen out and a metal frame was hanging down.  Look in the manual, it was the focusing screen had somehow been released and had fallen out.  A lot of the basic information seems to be assumed in the manual, so getting it back without having noted where it came from wasn't too simple.

Looked up the web for a local repairer/expert.  The only camera shops now are the chain stores - the little local shops where local expertise resided have all gone.  Phoned the shop where I bought the bits.  They were very helpful and phoned the manufacturer's distributor, but without a decent picture of what I needed to do I was still stick.  Looked on the web - here there were several 'home brewed' instructional articles.  The main difficulty here is knowing what to trust, and again the instructions assumed I was starting off replacing the screen, not dealing with one that had fallen out!  Finally more by luck than judgement, I pressed it in the right direction and it clicked back into place.  By this time dust had entered the viewfinder area and a fragment of the non lint cloth I was using had worked it's way into the sensor.  Getting too het up is no way to deal with a DLSR camera so I put the lot away until today.  A good search of multiple sites on the web provided the solutions I was after - properly researched the job looked none to difficult, so I had a go.

My point here is that with expensive equipment, I'd far prefer to whip it down to a local technicians and get them to sort the issue out, or at least discuss it with them.  I couldn't find anyone local, so would have had to send the camera off, losing it for several days at least and letting myself in for an unknown bill once they'd assessed the problem.  With PC equipment, there do now seem to be plenty of small shops providing this service, but this doesn't extend to cameras.  There's an alternative source of knowledge on the web to replace this, but you do have to provide the fingers yourself, and sourcing spares may not be simple.  Thinking about this, our dishwasher is missing a small spring - we've been unable to source a replacement and resent paying call out etc. for such a small (and optional) repair.

Incidentally, the sensor clean worked fine, also got the dust out of the viewfinder area.  Only problem is the focusing screen got a small scratch when it fell out, which I've made much worse trying to clean it off!  Screens not available at the shops, so I'll have to buy on the web or special order from a shop.