Watch the photographer as he renovates a beautiful 100-year-old camera

When it comes to cool projects with vintage cameras, Markus Hofstätter is one of the names that immediately come to mind. Many of his portraits were shot on his faithful old Century No.2 camera. However, its bellow started to leak light, and Markus decided it was time to make an effort and repair it.

So, he got to work and restored the 100-year-old beauty. He filmed the whole process and the end result, and if I may say – the ol’ gal looks even better now with its brand new bellow.

Markus started by ordering a new bellow online. He chose a red one because it’s his company color, but some cameras from the 1920s also had red bellows. I think it was a great choice: it looks fantastic and I just love it how it works with his camera

While replacing a bellow may seem relatively simple, it actually took Markus a long time to put everything together. This is because it was important to him to reuse as many original parts as possible. He even reused the screws and nails, even though they were a pain to work with since they were so old! However, he wanted to preserve the history of this camera, and he considers that to be a crucial step when you’re renovating a piece of history such as this camera.

Markus glued all parts together, lined the new bellow with black felt, and then it was time for those fiddly screws and nails. It took forever, but I’d say it was worth it. Take a look at Markus’s process in the video above, and below, you can see some images. Be sure to follow Markus on Instagram and support his work on Patreon for many more fantastic projects to come.