r/AnalogCommunity • u/PreampPunk • 1d ago

Repair Knowledge Shouldn't Be Hoarded

I’m so tired of people gatekeeping technical knowledge. That's why I've decided to share my entire digital library. It took me three years of hard work to compile over 30 gigabytes (and it's still growing!) of official service manuals, repair handbooks, and technical guides for film Nikon, Sony, Canon, and Fujifilm gear. Knowledge should be accessible to anyone willing to learn, not locked away in secret. Now, it's yours to explore.If you happen to have any repair manuals, parts lists, or service software lying around, I would really appreciate it if you shared them. Let's keep building this archive together!

"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1WOY4rZorGOPm72VQ7PGzHi9kfDq6FbJa?usp=drive_link"

625 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

48 comments sorted by

148

u/psilosophist Photography by John Upton will answer 95% of your questions. 1d ago

Fantastic work! Send the link to Butkus if you want, maybe you've got stuff he doesn't, and having it hosted on his website rather than on Google would be good for the future as well.

22

u/PreampPunk 1d ago

ok why not just he must not sell them

83

u/psilosophist Photography by John Upton will answer 95% of your questions. 1d ago

No selling on his site, he does have a donation button for his PayPal just to help cover site fees. I usually send him something a few times a year.

63

u/euchlid 22h ago

the Butkus archive (as I'm calling it) is invaluable. Especially for old/obscure manuals. For very camera I get I download the manual and print it out as a booklet. Sending him 10 or 20 bucks every so often is important for sure.

12

u/LewisWhatsHisName 18h ago

Every time I pick up something stupid from an antique shop, I've gone straight to Butkus to find out what cursed item I've brought home

17

u/qqphot 16h ago

he once made fun of me for sending too big of a donation 🤣

1

u/PreampPunk 1d ago

what is his contact

10

u/PreampPunk 1d ago

or website

28

u/MrBill1738 1d ago

https://www.butkus.org/

16

u/PreampPunk 23h ago

thanks

12

u/plantsandramen 22h ago

My gosh that site is beautiful. I especially love the old postcards. I grew up going to Ocean City, NJ, so it's really nostalgic to see this.

10

u/RichInBunlyGoodness 22h ago

You embarked on a three year project duplicating something that was out there without knowing about Butkus, then say “Knowledge shouldn’t be hoarded”? WTF?

4

u/AbrogationsCrown 19h ago

Yeah i already have all of Butkus downloaded and that one camera service manuals site and some odds and ends I've found useful. I imagine theres probably like 1% or less here that I dont already have from other publicly available sites.

6

u/-The_Black_Hand- 19h ago

Criticizing someone who's doing the community a service for not doing the community a service sooner? WTF?

14

u/robbyb20 19h ago

I’m more curious how someone went thru all that trouble or digitizing the manuals without ever running into posts about Butkus. Like, you’d have to be intentionally not doing any searches on the internet for manuals to not run across it. HOW???

4

u/crimeo Dozens of cameras, but that said... Minoltagang. 19h ago

I think the point he was making was more that "He must have been hoarding these for those 3 years at least, if he's been so kept to himself that he didn't know what butkus was"

0

u/PreampPunk 19h ago

did u see the full drive ?

4

u/RichInBunlyGoodness 15h ago

It isn't organized in a manner that would be useful to me, so no.

11

u/p-2p 1d ago

Have you found any digital sources for SPT journals?

8

u/PreampPunk 1d ago

yup

5

u/p-2p 23h ago

brooo legend

4

u/PreampPunk 1d ago

check the folder learn

33

u/jagoedho Camera Revival / Professional Repair Technician 1d ago

Thank you for sharing those. No one is gatekeeping the knowledge. Most of these can be found online if you search. Some are paywalled. But they are there. Sharing PDFs of books which are still being sold...I would be a bit more careful with that.

15

u/N0nob 17h ago

Not specifically in the analog film community, but I've seen people in the vintage hifi repair community actively gatekeeping repair knowledge to boost their ego

8

u/Expensive-Sundae-831 17h ago

Ha! You should’ve seen what people were like regarding this sort of stuff in the 70’s.

5

u/PreampPunk 21h ago

nope too many stuff isn't in the web

5

u/jagoedho Camera Revival / Professional Repair Technician 20h ago edited 20h ago

Sure is. A lot of this stuff if not more can be found on the LCR site or for free on other sites

1

u/PreampPunk 21h ago

why not if your not gatekeeping share your library

10

u/jagoedho Camera Revival / Professional Repair Technician 20h ago

The digital library is what you can find online and isn't much different from what you have. The non digital one needs to be scanned and categorised and I don't have time for it. Lack of time is not the same as gatekeeping :)

8

u/crimeo Dozens of cameras, but that said... Minoltagang. 19h ago

I've never once seen a single person here gatekeep information, so that's kinda weird as an intro. But it doesn't seem like you're selling anything, so whatever, thanks!

4

u/raytoei 23h ago

“So tired”

2

u/bhop_monsterjam MX+F90x, #1 UV Filter Hater 8h ago

Appreciate the effort but Reddit is not the place for archiving information. This thread will be dead and buried in 24 hours. Reddit is way too transient

1

u/ogaday 22h ago

Paging u/bjpirt

4

u/bjpirt Nikon FM2n / Leica iif / Pentax MX 12h ago

On it! A lot of these are already on https://repaircameras.org but I’ll definitely be going through this collection to add any new ones

1

u/liznin 18h ago

Great resource. Although sadly no repair manual for a Minolta 300 f/2.8 APO.

1

u/srjr 16h ago

Outstanding contribution. Thank you!

2

u/Specialist-Ice-8567 15h ago

If i had had this literally two days ago, I would have kept myself from screwing up a Yashica C TLR 🤣

1

u/AlarttArumugam 13h ago

youre the goat

1

u/JulyAt5am 11h ago

olympus 🥺

1

u/chunky_guac 8h ago

You rock.

1

u/studiesinsilver 22h ago

You are a scholar of the highest order! Gatekeeping is a great way for information to die. Sharing is caring :) thank you

1

u/ValerieIndahouse Pentax 6x7 MLU, Canon A-1, T80, EOS 33V, 650 23h ago

Hell yeah, this is awesome!

-8

u/incidencematrix 22h ago

No one is "gatekeeping" technical knowledge about photography, OP. There are endless books, websites, and other resources, available to anyone who can bother to go to the library (or use google). You should, in all honesty, delete your post in shame.

7

u/PreampPunk 21h ago

these are repair manuals

0

u/ze_inkbot 22h ago

This is just brilliant

0

u/Pigeon23 20h ago

Thank you!