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Apple kills off 3rd party iPhone 12 camera repairs thanks to proprietary Apple tool requirement

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If you’re one of those who’s jumped on the new iPhone 12 smartphones, be ready to take very good care of it because if you kill the camera, there’s no inexpensive repair option. It will have to go back to either Apple or one of the few (expensive) authorised repair centres, iFixit has discovered in some more extensive testing of the new iPhones.

A leaked internal Apple training guide suggests that this is intentional on Apple’s part, and also indicates that it’s true of all four models of the new 12 series iPhones, as they have to be tested through Apple’s proprietary software – although iFixit has only seen issues with the iPhone 12 so far. Oh, yeah, and screens can’t be user replaced without errors, either.

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Tearing down a $2,300 Sony GM lens for a DIY repair

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As a photographer, it’s one of the worst things that can happen. You’re away for three weeks travelling and shooting – for work – and right at the beginning of the trip you drop the only lens you’ve brought with you. That’s what happened to Pierre Lambert and his $2,300 Sony 16-35mm f/2.8 GM lens recently.

With part of the body of the lens twisted, there were obvious issues. Pierre chose to take the rather unconventional decision to attempt to repair the expensive lens himself. Fortunately for us, he shot video so the rest of us can see what’s contained inside this $2,300 lens.

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How to DIY repair a damaged tripod thread in your camera

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Tripod threads in the bottom of cameras and other devices are usually pretty solid. I’ve got cameras that are decades old that still have perfectly functional ones. But, I’ve also had a couple of adapters and gadgets where they haven’t survived so well. Quality control isn’t what it once was, and the number of devices containing 1/4-20″ sockets has soared compared to only a few years ago. So, failures are far more likely these days.

Repairs like this can be a pain. If you can’t connect your camera to your tripod, slider, gimbal or other support system, you’re screwed. Sending to a service centre for repair can be costly and take a few weeks to get your gear back. Fortunately, filmmaker Tom Antos has put up a video to show us how we can repair our own using a readily available DIY tripod screw repair kit.

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Watch a GoPro Hero 5 taken apart piece by piece (then put together again)

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When you were a kid, you may have toyed around with taking things apart. Then, putting them back together again. For me, more often than not, the put-back-together part ended with some spare parts. The lack of which did not seem to impact the assembled piece though.

Watch the GoPro Hero 5 undergoing the same procedure.  JerryRigEverything takes a brand new GoPro Hero 5 apart. Usually, those videos are made so you can learn how to replace damaged parts, but sadly, GoPro does not sell spare parts for the Hero5. You’d need another dead Hero 5 for savaging the parts. Who knows, maybe GoPro will end up selling parts, or you can Frankenstein 2 dead GoPros into a live one.

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“Specifications have nothing to do with quality” – Insights from a camera tech + the best lens teardown video you ever saw

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Mike Kusak at FixyourCamera.org is a self-confessed electronics nut.  As a camera tech with over a decade of professional experience Mike has worked on some of the most advanced cameras and lenses available.

In the first video of what looks set to become a valuable archive of reference material, Mike dismantles, repairs and rebuilds a Tokina 100mm f/2.8 Macro lens.

After seeing the video we were intrigued, so DIYP had a chat with Mike about his work, the website, YouTube and his hopes for their future.

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How I Fixed My Canon 5D Mark II Shutter With A Screwdriver And A Sense Of Bravery

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The shutter on my old Canon 5D Mark II died while on a trip to Fiji earlier this year. It happened quickly; I was shooting a panorama when horizontal black bars started appearing in some of the shots. After about 10 more photos in between turning the camera off and on again, it was dead. The shutter was stuck closed and powering the camera on yielded a helpless sounding soft ‘clunk’ and an “Error 20″ message. I was quoted around $500 to get this fixed at a repair shop. But.. an OEM replacement shutter is only $90US on eBay. So, after about 6 months of putting it off I finally built up enough #YOLO fever to have a crack at fixing it myself, saving $400 and learning a few things along the way.

The result? Watch the video for the abbreviated version, or continue reading on below for the guide!

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