Saturday, December 29, 2007

Olympus Pen-EE-3 Reseal

The Olympus Pen-EE-3
One of my favourite carry-everywhere/anywhere street shooters. Despite being a 'half-frame' format, the quality of the lens gives some excellent, well focused results.



This Olympus Pen-EE3 is in desperate need of new light seals.




Some small bits of the old seals have stuck on to other areas inside the camera




After soaking the old seals with a few drops of isopropyl alcohol (lens/glass cleaning fluid) for a few minutes, removal is made easier. A bamboo barbecue stick shaped to a flat-spatula-like shape at one end serves well. Being wood it doesn't scratch the paint. (Every time the end gets dirty, just cut-off the end and re-shape.)

Scraping off the old seals at the door hinge


Scraping off the old seals at the door end


Old seals completely removed


...

Fitting sealing material (strips of 1.5mm width) into the slots/rails. NO GLUE USED. The width of the seal squeezes nicely into the slots and gluing is unnecessary.

Fitting seals into the lower slots

Fitting seals into the upper slots

New seals in place!
A thicker 'seal' which actually acts more like a 'cushion' for the film canister is placed at the door end



2 comments:

Jesito said...

Thanks for posting it!
I got a Pen EE and even being quite different, has given me some insight on how to do it.

Regards,
Jes.

rem said...

Hello! Good post! Was wondering what kind of material you put as new seals on the camera. I recently just bought a second hand ee-3 pen and yesterday I resealed it using felt paper. I however didnt touch the upper and lower 1.5mm slots. Just near the hinge and the other side (the wide strips). I just used a makeshift seal material using 2-folds of felt paper.

Thanks!

remzamora